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An Anchor of the Soul: 



A STUDY OF THE NATURE OF FAITH. 



By JAMES VILA BLAKE. 



CHICAGO: 

CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY, 

1894. 






Copyright, i8g4, by James Vila Blake. 



The Library 

of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



/>*« cf Thos. P. Hatyin & Co. 
Chicago. 



*1- 



TO 
JOSEPH HENRY ALLEN, D. D. 



Revered Teacher and dear Friend: 

He is honored enough who honors a wise man. There- 
fore in taking privilege to inscribe this little work to you, the 
wise and generous Scholar, I have more honor than I could 
harvest from a world's applause. I desired greatly your judg- 
ment and aid in the manuscript, but could not prevail with 
myself that you should discover before this inscription my 
little worthiness of your approval in this offering. The 
hollow of that deficiency I entreat you to fill up from the 
abundance of my affectionate and grateful reverence. 

James Vila Blake. 
February, 1894, Chicago. 



ARGUMENT. 



BOOK FIRST. 

I. That there have been Many Different Views and 

Definitions of Faith 7 

II. That there are Objections to these Views, and 
Especially One Objection Underlying Them 

All 11 

III. That, nevertheless, in Study of Faith we must 

set out from the Facts as they are 21 

IV. That Faith is a Universal Fact 23 

V. That there is an Intellectual Element in Faith, 25 

VI. That there is an Emotional Element in Faith, 27 

VII. That Faith always appears as above Doubt. .. . 28 
VIII. That these Elements in Faith show the Human 

Search for the Absolute and Perfect 31 

IX. That Faith must be Completed with an Object, 35 

X. That the Object of Faith is the Universe. .'.... 39 

XI. True Definition of Faith 46 

XII. The Beauty and Glory of this View of Faith, 49 

BOOK SECOND.— 

I. Transition to Trust in our own Souls 55 

II. That Trust in the Soul has Fared 111 in History, 58 

III. That the worst Ill-fare of Trust in the Soul is in 

the Moral Sphere 62 

IV. That we must Trust our own Souls 65 

V. That our Spiritual Being corresponds to Nature, 66 
VI. Review in Brief of Trust in the Soul 68 

VII. Examples 70 

VIII. That this View of Faith tests Character 73 

IX. That this View of Faith enlarges the Character, 75 
X. That this View of Faith gives great Comfort 

and Peace 77 

5 



XI. That we are Compelled to Trust our Own Souls, 80 
XII. Objection— That Trust in the Soul Fails Prac- 
tically 82 

XIII. That Mental Errors have no Weight against 

our Spiritual Trustworthiness 84 

XIV. That Moral Errors have no Weight against our 

Spiritual Trustworthiness 85 

XV. The Mental and Moral States that are Harmful, 87 
XVI. That Failure or Wreck is not possible to a 

Morally-earnest Spirit 89 

BOOK THIRD. 

I. Transition to Thought of God 95 

II. Why I have not Defined Faith as Trust in God, 96 

III. Now We are to apply the True View of Faith 

to the Thought of God 100 

IV. The Three Emphases in the One Fact 102 

V. First, of Order 103 

VI. Secondly, of Law 106 

VII. That Law and Order are One 115 

VIII. Thirdly, of Unity 116 

IX. That Law, Order and Unity are One 119 

X. The Emphasis of Each of these Three Terms, 120 

XI. That this View of Faith Glorifies Nature, 121 

XII. That this View of Faith glorifies the Thought 

of God 127 

XIII. That this View of Faith is Strength, Peace, Joy, 133 

XIV. That this View of Faith deepens Devotion and 

Worship 137 

XV. That this View of Faith is a Revealer of God, 141 
XVI. Conclusion 144 



BOOK FIRST. 



CHAPTER I. 

That there have been Many Different Views and 
Definitions of Faith. 

Words are but sign-posts, showing the paths 
in the soul; you can not go to the end of any 
path. Or again: Words are like doors, swinging 
wide, serving to make us free of vast courts, cor- 
ridors, archways, aisles, holy crypts; but when 
we look in or would go in, the endless halls run 
into darkness. Human speech thus witnesses to 
the delicate facts and unpathed regions of the 
human soul. For these lie before us; they are 
never absent; facts of the soul arise constantly as 
matters of experience. Yet they elude definition; 
language cannot contain them; words make few 
paths to them and none through them. 

Such a fact is Faith. What is this thing called 
Faith? Let us put forth into this cloister-hall or 
this vanishing path of the soul and go as far as 
we can. 

The name Faith has been given to many facts 
or acts of the soul; and often to contrary facts, so 
that if one has been called faith properly, the 

7 



8 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

others can not be. This name has divided sects 
and schools from each other, and the people from 
the philosophers. And among the people, yes, and 
among the learned too, the wise and unwise alike, 
very great moral contrasts have been covered by 
this same name. For what has gone by this name 
often has been the breath of glorious actions, 
and often again the veil of lies and cruelties — as 
on the one hand martyrdom, patience, mercy, 
forgiveness, trust, courage, knowledge, freedom, 
blithe heart, and on the other hand " pious 
frauds," ignorance, mourning, sack cloth and 
ashes, pride, war, persecution, tortures. The bad 
and the good, the fierce and the gentle, the free 
and the slavish, say alike that their deeds come of 
Faith. 

But this division, diversity, unlikeness, has its 
use; indeed, no little value. For it is a witness to 
how great and deep a fact of soul Faith is. If only 
one party of men lay claim to it, then Faith might 
be an empty error, a vanity, a conceit of a little 
company. Nay, if all men were agreed what Faith 
was, then Faith were no very great thing. For what 
grand thing is there in the world, on the nature of 
which men are agreed? It is some small thing, 
and mostly such as can be handled, and, next, 
what may be seen, and less still, what may be 
heard (for hearing is the most spiritual sense that 
purveys knowledge), on which men are agreed. 
Therefore, since all parties differ and often are 
very wide apart as to what Faith may be, and yet 



BOOK FIRST. g 

all claim it and revere it, and say it is a mighty 
thing in the soul, it must be so — it must be a great 
deep within us which thus bears every one up 
and no one can sound it. The word or name, 
Faith, is needful and has come forth by reason of 
sublime moral facts in human nature. We shall 
not do unwisely if we set out with this thought, as 
on a path, and try whither it will lead. 

Moreover, as the word Faith has been used to 
name so many unlike things, we may suspect a 
unity or likeness lurking somewhere at which men 
have aimed by this name. For it is a strange 
thing, and the like not to be found in language, if 
men have fixed one name on so many things 
altogether different, even contrary and opposed. 
Wherefore let us look narrowly whether there be not 
an inward state of a believer, a manner of believ- 
ing, and this state or manner, being alike in all, 
has caused men to give one name, Faith, each to 
his own belief, because men felt in a like way and 
believed with a like spirit, but saw only the unlike 
beliefs. This is no more than to say that early 
and easily men have known the lighter and floating 
things in which they differ, but only long after- 
ward, and not even yet, the deep things in which 
they are at one. 

We have then these two thoughts to set out 
with, that Faith is a very great reality of some 
kind, and that the manner of believing or state of 
the believer may be more material to Faith than 
the belief. 



IO AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

But what are some of the unlike things which 
men have called faith? 

I intend only the religious sense of it; for the 
word has other uses in human affairs. I speak of 
the meaning of Faith among the terms of religion. 
These meanings in chief I count four: 

Faith has signified a very strong conviction, 
very fervent and held very sacred, come to by the 
mind in its free exercise of reason. This is the 
noblest meaning of the four. 

Secondly, Faith has signified a strong convic- 
tion, very fervent and held very sacred, but not 
come to by the mind, but rather loaded upon the 
mind by impression and sentiment, or by opinion 
and voice, without oversight of reason, making 
light of reason, or even scorning and scouting it. 
This is the lowest and poorest meaning, and dis- 
closes weakness of the spirit. 

For the third, Faith has signified thorough 
cession of oneself and entire subjection to a church 
or priesthood or to writings, held to be of divine 
authority. This is a tyrannic sense. Like all 
tyrannies, it may work in two ways: If men be 
low, it will raise them by order and obedience, for 
order is a great power and obedience a great 
virtue. But if once men grow high in all things 
but the tyranny and hence need it no more, and 
still it hold its grip, then it drags them down, 
being like armor, stifling weights and fetters when 
no longer it is defence. 

For the fourth meaning, Faith has denoted an 



BOOK FIRST. II 

acceptance of saving doctrine wrought in the soul 
by an act of divine grace. To me this meaning is 
an impiety. I mean not that they are impious, 
who hold it; for it is wonderful what profane 
things men may do, say and think, while yet there 
is no impiety in their hearts. But if goodness be 
something real and is unlike sinfulness, and if 
truth be something real and differs from error, 
then to bestow salvation for no virtue of the soul, 
nay, nor even for any thinking of the soul's own, 
but for a credence done in it by grace, is but an 
unholy wilfulness; and that is an unrighteous, a 
barbarous, thought of God. 

Around these four main views of Faith, as they 
have prevailed in times or in places, one or another 
of them, or as they h*ave striven with each other, 
have been grouped many things in history, litera- 
ture, government and art. 



CHAPTER II. 

That there are Objections to these Views, and Espec- 
ially One Objection Underlying Them All. 

That all these four views of Faith, except the 
first one, are open to objections I have said 
already; as that the second is but a weakness of 
spirit, doffing reason, like a helmet too heavy for 
the head — surely no such strong thing this as 
Faith must be; that the third is as weak as the 
second, and harsher, because both are subjections, 



\1 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

but in the latter the master is foreign — I mean 
outside the mind, and often has been cruel; and 
that the fourth has no look of reality or nature or 
harmony in it, but of pretence or invention — 
unrighteous, wilful, ill-sorted, mis-joined. Now 
these general objections run into many divisions, 
and bring to light many instances and points; but 
it is needless to follow them, for there is one 
objection which is enough of itself, and applies to 
all the four views, the first no less than the others. 

This objection is, that by all these views Faith 
is not distinguished from belief — I mean belief in 
some fixed doctrines; and even some who have 
tried to define Faith better than this, say no more 
than that it lies in the manner of believing these 
same things, and is a certain great energy and 
ardor of belief of them. But now I will dare to say 
that Faith must not be confused with belief in any 
sum of doctrines or with any manner of believing 
the same; because Faith is something much greater 
than any doctrines however venerable or religious, 
and greater than any manner of holding doctrines 
however devoted be this manner. This point, the 
greatness of the true nature of Faith, is my aim 
or goal, to which I hope we shall come in good 
time. But here I will offer five special reasons 
why it is well or needful to part Faith carefully 
from belief in any doctrines, or from any manner 
of believing them. 

The first reason is that by a strange argument, 
hanging on this view of Faith, persons commend 



BOOK FIRST. 13 

themselves for taking doctrines carelessly, without 
thought. For, say they, we are to- be saved by 
Faith; therefore the more Faith, the better and 
safer. But Faith is belief in the true creed. 
Therefore we will believe all that is offered us, or 
as much as possible, and question not; because if 
we err in believing more than enough, this is no 
hurtful error, for at least we believe enough, and 
are safe. The morality of this argument is so bad, 
and so servile and fawning it is, that I should not 
state it here as a mode of thinking, or deem it 
could prevail in any one, if more than one person 
had not set it forth to me as potent in their minds 
and as good wisdom in religion. But the evil is 
not in the logic but in this wrong view of Faith. 
I know no way to fly from the logic if once the 
bad premises be granted, that Faith is belief in any 
sum of doctrines, or a manner of believing them. 

Another reason against this same view of Faith, 
is that it nurses a very vile pride, a pride of Faith, 
a vaunting of oneself in religion. Then doth 
a man put on a badge and face it out boldly that 
thereby he has put on the virtues of which the 
badge is token. But, as says Amiel in his Journal, 
"generally speaking it is the contrary which 
happens. The nobler the badge, the less esti- 
mable is the wearer of it. Such at least is the 
presumption." By which I think Amiel means 
that a noble badge is like to draw a crowd of the 
unworthy to dress themselves with it; or perhaps 
he means that one who takes any glorious thing 



14 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

to make a mark or badge for himself whereby to 
set himself above others, so misuses greatness as 
to show himself little. " It is extremely danger- 
ous," Amiel continues, "to pride oneself on any 
moral or religious specialty whatever. Tell me 
what you pique yourself upon and I will tell you 
what you are not." Now this view of Faith, that it 
is belief in a sum of doctrines, has nourished this 
bad pride, the content and comfort of multitudes 
who will not take one step in any path to knowl- 
edge and thought. "Lo! we are above the great 
and look down on the learned," they cry; "for 
behold us well assured in matters which impiously 
they cast away, or weakly wrestle with by their 
dull sense and unlighted reason." So Barrow 
says — "By virtue of Faith, rustic and mechanic 
idiots do in true knowledge surpass the most 
refined wits, * * * tell us that which a learned 
infidel doth not know; " and on he goes with a 
long triumph on the illumination of a Christian 
child, properly indoctrinated, compared with the 
darkness of Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Epic- 
tetus. But what "rustic and mechanic" boasting 
is this! And all for no shape of his own, but for 
garments overlaid on him! Here is no humility, 
no simpleness, no, nor true knowledge, no, nor 
yet fineness nor chastity of soul, but only loud 
flourishing, pride, flapping and crowing, like a 
cock who equally well will crow on any place of 
advantage, whether it be a barn-heap or a hill of 
sweet-flowering turf. 'Tis a bad count against any 



BOOK FIRST. 15 

view of Faith that ever it nurses such a pride. 
True, the pride may be in the man, with no root 
in the thought. Yet if the like pride appear in 
many men, the thoughts common to them are to be 
examined narrowly. 

The third reason why this view of Faith, that 
it is the same with believing some doctrines or 
with a manner of believing them, is an ill view, is 
that thereupon Faith makes no room for doubt 
with it or near it, but must have the whole 
chamber of the mind to itself and casts out doubt 
as an unwelcome intruder. "Doubt shall have 
no part with me," quoth Faith; "I will make no 
junto with such a fellow; he is a shabby Alien, 
with none of my blood in him, nor the blood of 
my race." Thus by Faith, at this turn or view of 
it wherein it is confused with belief, doubt always 
has been disowned and thrust out; and rightly too, 
if Faith be merely belief of a creed or a manner of 
believing it. For then doubt is the direct opposite 
of Faith, and a false claimant, a thievish " sturd)' 
beggar" at the door. Therefore it has been hated 
and hunted, as a disturber and enemy, an artful 
pretender, a destroyer of peace, a foe of the truth. 
Yea, so great is the confidence of this family 
of Faith that it has not scrupled to pass divine 
judgment, outlawing doubt as "an enemy of God." 
To choke a doubt has been glorified as a high 
victory of Faith, and to be past having a doubt, 
or not to have come to one, howsoever it might be, 
has been called the very crown and mark of the 



1 6 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

high calling of Faith. No way to deal with doubt 
but by flight into Faith's chamber and hiding one's 
head under the creed! Sir Thomas Browne writes 
of himself, " There are, as in philosophy, so in 
divinity, sturdy doubts and boisterous objections 
wherewith the unhappiness of our knowledge too 
nearly acquainteth us. More of these no man hath 
known than myself; which I confess I conquered 
not in a martial posture, but on my knees." Then 
tells he how the devil whispered to him that the 
brazen serpent might have healed through some 
secret sympathy, that perhaps it was naphtha, not 
water, which Elijah poured over his altar, that 
the combustion of Sodom might be due to a bitu- 
minous lake, and the manna of Moses the same as 
the honey-dew in Arabia described by travelers. 
"The devil therefore," says he, "made the query, 
'Where was then the miracle in the days of 
Moses?' The Israelites saw but that in his time, 
which the natives of those countries behold in ours. 
Thus the devil played at chess with me, and, 
yielding a pawn, thought to gain a queen of me, 
taking advantage of my honest endeavors; and, 
whilst I labored to raise the structure of my 
reason, he strove to undermine the edifice of my 
faith."* But truly I must say, not profanely, that 
it is but a demoniacal kind of Faith which so dances 
to find a devil in doubt; for always you shall find 
that it is the devil who is quick to think he noses 
an imp, being steamed in his own smell and 

*Religio Medici, Sec. XIX. 



BOOK FIRST. 17 

carrying always his abode in his nostrils. Doubt 
is not a foe, an alien, a thief, nor aught infernal 
or evil, no, but divine, most friendly to man and 
whispering angelically to the soul, albeit first the 
voice be like a discipline. It is the quickening of 
a new child of Thought. It is the sudden sight of 
the mind, or — nobler still — that long, dutiful, 
patient suspense, which is the very power and 
patience of God in us. It is the rapturous burst, 
or the exciting surmise, of things much greater 
than yet we know. There is no way to doubt 
never but to think never, to dream never; yea, 
even never to worship, for adoration will lift the 
soul sometime to a height where things will look 
little that once looked large. Wherefore, by the 
confusion of Faith with belief, doubt has been like 
a Christ coming down into the human soul, by 
virtue of its reasonable essence, to reveal new and 
great glories from heaven, and forever cast out 
and crucified.* 

The fourth reason against viewing Faith as a 
belief in a creed or as intensity of such belief, is 
that moral and spiritual distinctions are confounded 
thereby; yes, and distinctions of the very greatest 
import to the religious life, so that not only 
unlike things are confounded, shuffled together 
and confused, but the bad is confounded with the 



*" Europe was beginning (in the twelfth century) to enter into that 
inexpressibly painful period in which men have learned to doubt, but 
have not yet learned to regard doubt as innocent; in which the new 
mental activity produces a variety of opinions, while the old credulity 
persuades them that all but one class of opinions are the suggestions of 
the devil." — Lecky's " Rationalism in Europe ," Vol. I., p. 72. 



l8 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

good, so that either the bad is praised or the good 
is scouted according to the temper or creed of 
the beholder. If it be Faith to give ourselves up 
and surrender us like a prey or a captive to some 
particular belief or creed, and doubt by conse- 
quence either is impossible by reason of our 
slavishness or called impiety by our ignorance, 
why then madness and sound mind are one, frenzy 
and calmness are the same, both being Faith, 
fearing and trusting, thinking and non-thinking, 
cruelty and mercy are alike, the inquisitor and the 
martyr are the same persons, the torturer and 
the victim have one countenance, fanatical fury 
and saintly forbearance agree, Jesus is overleaped 
by Peter the Hermit and Pope John has a better 
title than Huss, — all are confused, one not to be 
known from another in morals and religion, if 
Faith be but belief or intensity thereof. But is it 
to be said that it is one thing, one heavenly fact, 
named Faith, which upholds the martyr in the fire 
and brought him to the flames smiling, yet 
likewise fires up fanatics till the fagots catch 
flames from them? No. This confounds all moral 
and spiritual qualities. Rather I say the difference 
is as wide as the heavens. 'Tis not charity, but 
ignorance of Faith and abuse of the high name of 
it, if we call the creed-zeal and passion of the 
inquisitor Faith. 

Finally, for the fifth reason against this view of 
Faith, it is this, that history tears it from us 
if once we will let that stern Muse lay hands on 



BOOK FIRST. 19 

our minds. It is possible to forbear her, easy in 
truth to escape her; for what easier than ignor- 
ance? Therefore many persons still do cling to 
Faith as a belief in a particular creed — a very 
rudeness of mind — by the same way as they escape 
gentle attiring, because they have not grace to 
obtain good company. But if once you shall make 
terms of friendship with History, the unconforming 
Muse will strip you clean of many rank, fusty 
garments to put on you new robes of intelligence. 
Thereupon you will find yourself clad with the 
knowledge that creeds are transient things, yes, 
very clouds of dust, thick enough at the time, and 
so tickling human organs that they can but cough 
and sneeze out the same dust with much repetition 
and great noise, but clearing away gradually, and 
after a little not a sign of it left: or if you will 
seek it, you must look on the ground, down to 
which it has settled, and men treading on it. 
Where now are the Greek deities, that banished 
Anaxagoras, burned the books of Protagoras and 
tipped the hemlock to the lips of Socrates? What 
are they but the lone strifes of students and the 
sociable delights of poets? The Roman genius is 
dead, Rome's heroes myths. Is our Christianity 
that of Paul and the gospels, with their role of 
speedy Messianic splendors in a crystal sky? No; 
but a sober love of nature's order has clad our 
Christianity, as in a simple white stole, and we 
sleep no longer every night, like Paul and the seer 
of Patmos, looking to be awaked very likely by 



20 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

the trumpet and the armies in the heavens and to 
be "caught up to meet the Lord in the air." We 
have unmantled us of an infallible church. Now 
are we unlacing from about us an infallible Bible 
and miraculous Christ. The Trinity, the Mediator, 
the Atonement, Everlasting Punishment and Elec- 
tion, are old garments, no more even to be patched, 
but just hung away as they are. Salvation no 
more is to be found in Baptism or Eucharist, nay, 
the word itself has "suffered a sea-change;" 
"those are pearls that were," its fiery eyes, 

"And to be saved is only this, 
Salvation from our selfishness." 

Yea, and all the miracles, of Old and New Testa- 
ment together, as many think, and as truly to be 
honest I must say, are on the march to the 
kingdom of sweet shadows. What field for Faith 
is here, what room for it in such a procession, 
what rock for it in such a flood, and what a sad, 
sorry creature is man, if Faith, which so dearly 
the soul cherishes, be but a fond or frightened or 
fanatic clinging to a log of creed floating by in a 
freshet of passion. 

These now are five good reasons, without seek- 
ing others, why it is bad and untruthful to view 
Faith as the embracing of a particular body of 
doctrines, or a passion of embrace of it: I. That 
this leads to lack of all scruples in believing: 

2. That it breeds a very vile pride of mind: 

3. That it puts out the lamp of doubting and 



BOOK FIRST. 21 

questioning: 4. That it confounds moral distinc- 
tions: 5. That History soon puts her besom to it 
if we let her in. 



CHAPTER III. 

That, nevertheless, in the Study of Faith we must 
set out from the Facts as they are. 

But now it may be said, — 'Tis true indeed that 
these evils come of unreasoning and fanatical 
devotion to a creed; wherefore they would be good 
reasons against confusing Faith with this same 
creed-believing if Faith had any better character 
to offer for itself. But in truth Faith is no more 
than another name for fanatical belief in a creed — 
a name by which to gild over the coarse stuff of 
the fact. 'Tis mere prejudice, slavishness, pas- 
sion, frenzy, " essentially irrational, blind and the 
fruit of ungoverned imaginations," "invoked some- 
times to make up for the silence of reason and 
sometimes to constrain the reason to be silent," 
Faith is no more than the turmoil, tumult and fury 
of the creed-passion. 

Well, if this be so, then we have in Faith but 
another soft-draping word for an ill and hard 
thing. But I think 'tis worth searching whether 
there be not a central spiritual fact in us belonging 
to the word; — or rather I would say the word be- 
longs to the fact, and has sprung from it. And hav- 
ing searched, I think I find it indeed. Men have 



22 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

felt somewhat stir by nature in the depths of them 
which in act, to the great sorrowing and suffering 
of many innocents, they confused with creed- 
fervor and belief, which, notwithstanding, they 
could not think to be exactly the same with mental 
assent however fanatical. From the effort of men 
to name this somewhat has sprung the word Faith 
— so I think. In searching whether this be true 
or not, we must gather first all the facts that have 
marked what men have called Faith and take the 
light of them. We must set out from the ancient 
and present struggles of human nature. If Faith 
be a mistake, an interesting superstition, though 
it has swept solemn harmonies from people, 
statesmen, philosophers, from high and low alike, 
saints and sinners, learned and ignorant, carved 
huge things from the stony Hebrew pride and 
soothed their fanaticism to psalms, inspired Paul, 
Alfred, Aquinas, St. Louis, Wicliff, Huss, and the 
thousand such, yea, and multitudes who from no 
historic vantage and grand spectacle but by their 
dark obscurity the more shone in the flames 
mayhap to their Lord's eyes, yea, and the Sacred 
Seven, who continually speak of Faith as breath 
of life — has done all this and yet be but a fiery 
superstition, how better or more quickly unmask it 
than by bringing together its marks till these 
show it is no more than a fanatic belief, not to be 
distinguished from a blind devotion to a particular 
creed; wherefore, not only a passing phase, but 
now nearly past, the foe of light and letters. But, 



BOOK FIRST. 23 

contrariwise, if there be aught in the soul, a joined 
trust and thought, which is different from intense 
assent to any special creed or system, nay, perhaps 
is the direct opposite thereof, which has in truth 
an object related to it in the facts of Creation and 
but one sole possible object, — if this be so, then 
this too we can find no sooner than by searching 
out the unities or constant terms in all the forms 
which Faith has taken. 

Thus we shall set out from the beating human 
heart, which will give us a warm speeding, and 
from the compared facts covered heretofore by the 
name of Faith, which will give us firm ground and 
good method. 



CHAPTER IV. 

That Faith is a Universal Fact. 

Now in setting forth to observe the facts or marks 
of Faith, we see forthwith that Faith is universal. 
'Tis not the trait of any one sect or religion 
or people. It belongs to man. Wherever man is, 
if he have come to a little thought, feeling and 
worship, he begins to speak of Faith. 'Tis not 
confined to civilized Europeans, nor to cultivated 
Greeks, nor to prophetic Jews, nor to fiery Arab- 
ians, nor to barbarians; but all have it. Neither 
does learning out-learn it nor ignorance come 
short of it. The Druid willingly would be stabbed 
with his own golden knife for his sacred mistletoe. 



2 4 



AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 



The Goth sailed up the Egyptian rivers after 
Valhalla and Odin. The dialectical Socrates pro- 
phesied to the Dikasts like an oriental mystic. He 
was an Elijah speaking Greek and infected with a 
passing mood of argument. No high place is 
there, no low place, where the name or the char- 
acteristic fact of Faith appears not. 'Tis like the 
atmosphere wherein the atoms move about while 
the whole is unchanged, so that the same self 
particles redden the blood of Esquimau and 
Hindoo, now one, now the other. Like the air, 
too, while it is one thing and reddens all blood, 
'tis a different matter in the blood that rumbles 
in a barbarian's skull-caverns and in the tide that 
sets flushing and murmuring the gulfs of a philoso- 
pher's or poet's soul. But whatever be the genius, 
I believe it but spreads the more to Faith the 
more the mind is round and continental. I mean 
not merely that this would seem to me the nature 
of such a mind, but that so the facts are. The 
high intelligence studies Faith and draws fine 
lines like a delicate instrument, making nice dis- 
tinctions and boundaries, but discards it not as a 
false thing, nor slights it as a little matter. 

Faith was, I think, the strongest bond in the 
middle ages between the untaught people and the 
clerks or clergy who alone could read and write. 
Afterward, when all the clerks and people together 
got more light, and, what was more perhaps, learned 
better to use the beams of the lamps they had, 
Faith was but lighted up, not cast away into night 



BOOK FIRST. 25 

nor left in dark corners. When learning upsprung, 
like an old seed new-upturned to the air, when 
thereof the people got some share and began to be 
better educated, when thereby thought took a 
wonderful start like a tree that stood barren till 
the turf became juicy, and when thereby individu- 
ality was unfolded, diversity of character was 
brought forth, and many shades of open and secret 
opinion came out, like colors from one light, and 
when thereupon freedom had grown so strong that 
if a tyrant spilled a martyr's life he but made 
himself a Deucalion tossing behind him the 
grandmother's bones, and straightway the earth 
was filled with ready martyrs, — then was Faith 
more loudly sung than ever, more carefully defined, 
more earnestly claimed by all the parties, while 
they all together yet knew so little of it, that each 
denied it to the others. And so has it been 
down to this our own day. There lack not men 
who scout it, mistaking it; but yet never was 
anything, I think, more venerated and cherished 
than now this same ancient thing called Faith. 

Faith is universal, nowhere lacking, everywhere 
plentiful. 



CHAPTER V. 

That there is an Intellectual Element in Faith. 

Looking now at the nature or elements of this 
Faith, which as to extent is universal, we see that 
it has contained always an intellectual element. 



26 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

This is to say that though the confounding of 
Faith with belief in a creed is an error which has 
wrought many evils, yet this error is not to be 
viewed as having no truth in it. In fact it will be 
wise and philosophical to think that this error is 
but the setting forth of an intellectual or conclud- 
ing element in Faith over-plainly, even unto mon- 
strosity. For the most terrible monsters are not 
those made up of parts all false and only imagined, 
but those whose natural and proper parts are 
changed in proportions, one dwarfed and another 
made huge, but all real and each needful in its 
proper bulk. Therefore 'tis fairly to be supposed 
that Faith involves belief in somewhat, and has in 
it a rational or reasoning element, a conviction of 
the truth of some thought or view; for never was 
Faith anywhere without this element, and it is so 
important, indeed, as to be mistaken for the whole 
of Faith, as I have said. Faith everywhere has 
fastened to a creed, a scheme of doctrines, and 
these taken commonly on sOme authority whose 
reverend sanctity and right to obedience is another 
element of belief. But indeed, though the appear- 
ance of this element in Faith be plain and notable, 
yet we might assume it by sheer reason; for could 
Faith, which so has moved men, be no more 
than a laying hold of something tenaciously with no 
questioning of what is laid hold of? Surely not. 
It seems in truth to "go without saying," and I 
need spend no more words on it, that Faith, 
though not belief in a particular creed, has an 



B"OOK FIRST. 27 

intellectual element in it, and involves belief or 
conviction of somewhat. 



CHAPTER VI. 

That there is an Emotional Element in Faith. 

If farther we go on to observe Faith as it appears 
among men, having seen that it is universal and 
intellectual, we shall see that also it is emotional, 
and that this is a very notable point in it. For 
not only is there always an element of feeling in 
Faith, but 'tis like to be very strong feeling. 
Faith shows not only emotion, but fervid vehe- 
ment, passionate earnestness. The belief on which 
Faith lays hold pertains to religion. It is looked 
on as saving and necessary. Within it is all 
peace and joy, without it is terror and ruin. The 
belief or creed gives rest, and rouses trust into an 
ardor. It is salvation. Faith adds love and hope 
to belief, and rejoices to lean and to feel protected. 
The Apostle has it that " Faith worketh by love," 
and that it is "the assurance of (or giving 
substance to) things hoped for." It pertains to 
the unseen, mysterious, awful, holy, and awakes 
the fervor which goes with such meditations. 
Sometimes, by reason of the strong emotional 
element in Faith, we use the word of other than 
religious matters, yet always with somewhat of a 
religious feeling or sense, an idea of trust, beauty, 
power; as when we speak of faith in a friend, in a 



28 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

cause or reform, in an institution, charity, govern- 
ment, or even in a business or enterprise; in like 
manner, faith in luck, which then is a superstition. 
Everywhere, feeling is supreme, not as against 
thought, but as the breath and spirit of thought, 
or by another figure, the fire of thought, thought 
being the altar which without the flame and incense 
is but a stone. Religion has been called "mor- 
ality suffused with emotion; " which, though it be 
little worth as a philosophy or account of religion, 
is notable as illumining the value of feeling in 
Faith. 'Tis surely the union of strong feeling 
with belief which has given Faith its hold on the 
world; whence emotion is much to be noted and 
considered in a study of the true meaning and 
nature of Faith. 



CHAPTER VII. 

That Faith always appears as above Doubt. 

For the fourth mark or element of Faith, having 
seen that Faith is universal, intellectual, emotional, 
we discern that it is a perfect assurance of the 
mind and clad with authority above doubt. To say 
this otherwise, not only is Faith a belief and a 
trust; the belief is invincible, the trust entire, 
neither the one to be doubted nor the other ever 
to fail. Nay, so implicit and so high above doubt 
does Faith show itself, that 'tis not enough that 
Faith may not be doubted; not even may it be 



BOOK FIRST. 2g 

examined; nay, it appeals even to no proofs, but 
declares itself its own proof and above all argu- 
ments, like seeing, hearing, consciousness. In 
truth Faith sets itself forth as the proof of proofs, 
not to be argued, but the ground of other argu- 
ment. For itself, it is only to be taken, neither 
questioningly by the reason nor slackly by the 
heart, but embraced with a holy passion. Faith — ■ 
so writes a religious thinker — is " exempt from 
doubts and disquietude; it directs man in his judg- 
ments and actions with an imperial authority which 
he dreams not of eluding or contesting; it is 
natural, sure, practical, sovereign;" and faith in 
aught, he says, as in a law, means that men 
"acknowledge and accept it as a legitimate sov- 
ereign; that their understanding honors itself in 
contemplating it, and their liberty in obeying it." * 
So exacting is this assurance of Faith, so high will 
it place itself, that even the conscience is not 
proof against the tyranny of it, or the attraction 
of it, if tyranny be thought too hard a word. 
If a doubt invade any belief which is an ele- 
ment of a Faith, how honest soever the doubt 
be, how simple and unsought and natural soever, 
very often the hardest point to meet, the sorest 
struggle, wherein spiritual manhood most is put to 
its quality, is the mistaken rebuke of conscience. 
For as George Eliot says of character, so must we 
of conscience, the heart of character, that it "is 
not cut in marble; it is not something solid and 

* Guizot, in Noyes' " Collection of Theological Essays." 



30 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

unchangeable. It is something living and chang- 
ing, and may become diseased as our bodies do." 
By this tenderness of conscience, under the robes 
of Faith when Faith is confounded with belief in 
creeds, like a body too warmly clad and too much 
housed, trembling with a rough or cool wind, good 
men have been harassed greatly, yea, shaken 
sorely, when they have been caught in a chill of 
doubt. The feeling is like the rebuke of con- 
science for a wrong, a foul deed, and hardly is to 
be known from it, and never if the soul be affrighted 
too soon and too much. Noble spirits thus have 
been wrung by conscience as by the agonies of re- 
morse, or driven with terror from the first stirrings 
of divine reason in them: like Pascal, who felt with 
horror the strife of his reason and his Faith begin- 
ning and growing in him, and violently stifled it by 
imposing silence on his reason.* 

But what need of more words on this point? 
Anyone may see, who will look, whether in or out 
of books, that what men call Faith is marked 
everywhere by an assurance above doubt, an 
authority beyond question. And I think it needs 
as few words to say that this is a very needful mark 
of Faith; because it is necessary to us to have 
something above all doubt. We have imperious 
need of the fixed, the immutable, "an anchor of the 
soul." For we must move, not only in body but 
in mind, journeying and revolving in thought; and 
unless there be something fixed, sure, unquestion- 

* Vacherot, " La Religion," p. 326. 



BOOK FIRST. 31 

able, immutable, like an axis around which we may 
turn through Thought's heavens but never be torn 
from our stability, or like a shore to which we are 
connected by the very seas we voyage on, unless, 
I say, we have such a fixity, our motion hath no 
bearing but is only a straying, hath no force to 
make head, being but a straggling; and if we hail 
from no port we can be bound to none. Where- 
fore this attribute of Faith, that it is assurance 
above doubt, is a necessity to us, that we may have 
an immutable ground, "an anchor of the soul" 
which, as the apostolic epistle says, is "both sure 
and steadfast and entereth into that which is within 
the veil." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

That these Elements in Faith show the Human Search 
for the Absolute and the Perfect. 

Thus far we have come to the noting four great 
marks of Faith as always it has shown itself, — 
that Faith lives everywhere, having no climate or 
epoch or people or condition for habitat, but 
at home in all these, like a genus of plants which 
thrives at the snow-line and at tropical river-beds; 
that Faith has an element of reason and thought in 
it, an intellectual part, being a firm hold on a 
belief, a mental declaration; that Faith has great 
feeling in it, an element of strong emotion, being a 
fervor of trust, dependence and devotion; that in 



32 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

these elements of mind and heart, of belief and 
feeling, Faith holds itself above all doubt or 
question. .These now are the four marks of Faith 
we have come at, — Universality, Intellectuality, 
Emotion, Certitude. That I have taken herein 
but a broad and general view I admit readily, and 
it were easy to ask the parts of the parts, the 
elements of the elements; the marks of the marks, 
unto a minute and long analysis. But what use 
of this if the broad outlines, the large and com- 
pound marks, suffice to direct our journey to 
Faith? And as these four have led me to such a 
view of Faith as both contents and rejoices me, I 
will hope by them to lead the reader to the same. 
But if when I come to the place whither these 
point me, the reader find my Faith not a fruit 
garden, as to me it seems, but dry sand, let him 
turn back to this point and take a new start by the 
nicer study of these four marks in the marks of the 
marks. 

For these four marks or traits now, let us 
associate them, and read their meaning as they go 
together like notes in a melody, and their sweetness 
as they sound in one like tones in a harmony. In 
this cherished thing called Faith, which as to 
spread is universal, and as to nature is a mighty 
believing and a rapture of trust and of undoubt- 
ingness, I read with reverence, nay, with awe, the 
search of the human soul everywhere for the Abso- 
lute and Perfect, for that which "hath no vari- 
ableness neither shadow of turning," which can not 



BOOK FIRST. 33 

change nor ever has changed, the immutable, the 
eternal, the truth unaffected by space or time, the 
infinite, the all-good, the all-beautiful, the all- 
mighty. For the Perfect, Absolute, Infinite, is the 
same in every time and place; which answers to the 
universality of the fact of Faith, and to the 
undoubtingness and certitude of it. The Infinite, 
Perfect, Absolute, stand veritably in the pure 
reason of man, in the necessary laws of thought, 
in the strictness of conclusions, in ideal concep- 
tions and their relations as in the mathematics; 
which answers to the intellectual element in Faith. 
The Absolute, Infinite, Perfect, the Whole, is full 
of beauty, of beauty and majesty unspeakable, 
clothed upon with light for garments, and com- 
panied with starry worlds for pomp; which answers 
to the emotions and raptures of Faith. Wherefore 
surely it is to be said with joyful confidence, nay, 
I must think, with the very joy of seeing and 
hearing, that Faith, which is universal, intellectual 
and reasoning, emotional and rapturous, and flow- 
ing around these traits with a light, if so I may 
express myself, which is as undoubtful to the 
soul's eye as the sun to the body's — this Faith, I 
say, is the human striving and the soul's prayer, 
"as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be," for the Infinite and the Perfect. The 
spirit of man must make its abode in the Immut- 
able, and there set its adoration, its sense of 
sanctity, its peace and health. In a bit of folk- 
lore, it is told that a certain man had ears so quick 



34 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

that he could hear the grass grow; and in sooth 
the thought is not foolish to science. But for a 
finer hearing still, let him who lists — for any ear 
is quick unto this, if it will be — hearken, and he 
shall hear the universal life, under the individuality 
of man, growing into the light and air; and though 
not at first in fine forms, but in the coarse and 
rude shapes of early Faith, like the first creatures 
of the earth, yet also, like those creatures, impres- 
sive, mighty, titanic. . 

'Tis a fashion now in philosophy — and has been 
more the mode, for I think it is fading — to treat 
slightly, and even contemptuously, this outreaching 
for the Perfect, the absolute, the necessary. They 
forwardly and assumingly put it away, as old 
coins into a cabinet, current once but now only 
curious to antiquarians. But 'tis not this striving 
and outreach of soul, I dare to think, but the 
different phases of men's thinking about it, that 
are fashions; for the primitive forth-striving of 
spirit which has lasted till now, is not an event, 
like this or that or the other thought about it, but 
Nature, which knows no fashion. The great truth 
is that humanity thus has striven without ceasing, 
nor is any time so early nor any people so low as 
that they exist before this striving appears; and 
this is the one fact underlying all forms of human 
endeavor. As when it was alleged against song 
"that before poets began to be in price," the 
people set their hearts on real things instead of 
fables, Sidney answered, "What that before time 



BOOK FIRST. 35 

was I think scarcely Sphinx can tell, since no 
memory is so ancient that gives not the precedence 
to poetry,"* so may we answer respecting Faith. 
The human spirit always will seek to root its 
nature in the absolute and necessary, that its 
thoughts may have reality in them, agreeing with 
the truth and nature of things. With this, the 
earth and sky become alike to it, as to a creature 
with wings. 



CHAPTER IX. 

That Faith must be Completed with an Object. 

Here now have we these four facts in Faith, that 
it is believing or intellectual, that it is fervently trust- 
ful or emotional, that both the belief and the trust 
are implicit with an assurance above all question, and 
that withal Faith is a universal fact, present in all 
human societies. If now these four facts be true 
traits or elements of faith (as surely it is right 
to infer that the first three are, from the fourth, the 
universality of them), then plainly we have to com- 
plete the definition of Faith by the object of it. 
For belief and trust are forth-goings of the mind, 
and are naught without an object. Faith then will 
have reached the whole truth of itself and have 
come to its stature when it shall lay hold of such 
an object that both belief and trust in the object 

* " Defense of Poesie." 



36 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

may be rationally implicit and perfect, and, if 
rational, then universal. 

Now here we must fasten " with hooks of steel " 
to the sure truth that the object of Faith must be 
very sublime. For it must satisfy and fill not only 
the intelligence (which so widens day by day that 
naught but sublimity will fill it) but also, and what 
is more perhaps, Faith's object must content the 
emotions which look so high and are so mighty 
that only the most sublime beauty and grand glory 
will engage them. Nor can I better say this, than 
in the words of Guizot on this point of the object 
of Faith, which he has considered much in his 
essay. He says, "As soon as Faith exists, all 
search after truth ceases; man holds himself to 
have arrived at his object; his belief is no longer 
for him anything but a source of enjoyments 
and precepts; it satisfies his understanding and 
governs his life, bestows on him repose, and regu- 
lates and absorbs, without extinguishing, his 
intellectual activity; and directs his liberty with- 
out destroying it." * This remark touching liberty 
is true, indeed, of Faith come to the truth of itself 
and its full stature or being; and 'tis such a very 
object of Faith that now we inquire for, as can 
engage perfect implicit belief and trust and yet 
leave freedom untainted and joyful. But to Guizot 
again. He says, "A belief so complete, so ac- 
complished, that all intellectual labor seems to have 
reached its termination, and that man, wholly 

* Noyes' "Collection of Theological Essays," p. 13. 



BOOK FIRST. 37 

united with the truth of which he thinks himself to 
be in possession, loses all thought of the path 
which has conducted him to it, — so powerful that 
it takes possession of the exterior activity, as well 
as of the human mind, and makes submission to its 
empire in all things a passionate necessity, as well 
as a duty, — an intellectual state, which can be the 
fruit, . not only of the exercise of the reason, but 
also of a powerful emotion, and of a long submis- 
sion to certain practices, and in the midst of which, 
when it has been once developed, the three grand 
human faculties are actively employed, and at the 
same time satisfied, — the sensidility, the intelligence, 
and the will; — such a condition of soul, and such 
a belief, demand in some sort occasions worthy of 
it, and must be produced by subjects which em- 
brace the entire man, and put into play all his 
faculties, and answer to all the demands of his 
moral nature, and have a right, in turn, to his 
devotedness. Intellectual beauty and practical 
importance, appear then, a priori, to be the charac- 
teristics of the ideas proper for becoming the 
materials of Faith. An idea which should present 
itself as true, but at the same time without arrest- 
ing by the extent and gravity of its consequences, 
would produce certitude; but Faith would not 
spring from it. And so practical merit — the use- 
fulness of an idea—would not suffice for begetting 
Faith; it must also draw attention by the pure 
beauty of truth. In other words, in order that a 
simple belief, natural or scientific, should become 



38 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

Faith, it is necessary that its object should be able 
to procure the pleasures of activity as well as of 
contemplation, that it may awaken in the mind the 
double sentiment of its high origin and power: in 
short, that it should present itself before man's 
eyes as the mediator between the moral and the 
ideal world, — as the missionary charged with mod- 
eling the one on the other, and of uniting them." * 
Here do we see in these good and true words, 
as I have said, that we must look for the object of 
Faith in some high sublimity; for truly Faith is a 
sublime thing within man and will go forth not at 
all except to a sublimity which includes man. 
Where, then, is the object of Faith, and what is it? 
What is that which has no transientness, no 
" shadow of turning," no wavering nor trembling 
nor mortality? — for the object must be so, since 
Faith is above doubt. What is that which is holy 
truth, sacred order, harmony, reason, drawing 
homage from instructed man universally? — for the 
object must be these, since Faith is intellectual? 
What is that which is very mighty, comprehending 
man in a higher order, above him and around him 
and he of it, safe, not to be shaken nor overthrown 
nor harmed nor even attacked, benign to man and 
to all creatures and mighty in the benignity— What 
is that? — for so must the object be, since Faith is 
trust and emotion. And what is that which in all 
these things is sublime, is majesty, able to engage 
that sublimity, Faith, which is such a reach of 

Noyes' " Collection of Theological Essays," p. 20-21. 



BOOK FIRST. 39 

reason, such a hold of trust, such a forth-calling 
and inspiriting of feeling? 

With this object, the account or definition of 
Faith must be completed. 



CHAPTER X. 
That the Object of Faith is the Universe. 

Here let me repeat again the four great traits 
which we have observed in that human experience 
which men have called Faith. These four traits 
are — That the experience is universal, appearing 
everywhere; that it is intellectual, a belief; that it 
is emotional, a fervency and a trust; and that, 
once taken, it is held above all doubt or question. 
And some point of assurance which hath a depth 
or a height out of reach of doubt is necessary to 
us, as in Chapter VII. I have said. 

The object of Faith concordant with these ele- 
ments must be, as in the last chapter I have sought 
to unfold, true, constant, everlasting, sublime, 
.which is to utter, with some expansion, the three 
household words of divinity and philosophy, " the 
good, the beautiful and the true." For the sublime 
is the beautiful, and somewhat more; also the con- 
stant and everlasting must be good, since the good 
can vary in no way unless it be conceived the un- 
completed good, in growth, and then in no way 
but to become the better, in which still it is the good. 

I am ready now to say that there can be but 



4-0 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

one object essential to the finishing of the account 
of Faith. This I say in accordance with the uni- 
versality which is one of the four marks of Faith. 
For what can be the force of this mark but that 
Faith, as in its lower forms, so in its most in- 
structed excellence and stature, is a natural 
experience? — therefore not cast off nor outgrown 
the while man has been rising and growing in 
mind, but rather, like life itself, the principle 
or power of the growth, and sure to be forth- 
putting in whatever forms the time and place will 
bear, now in coarse forms, afterward in beautiful; 
but all the forms strong and very living. Whence 
it is right to declare essential to Faith only such an 
object as acknowledges Faith to be possible to 
any man at any point of mind-growth, most learned 
or least learned, and the higher the intelligence, 
the surer the Faith. 

Now for this, as I have said, I know but one 
object; for one man may doubt this thing or deride 
that, and another may doubt another thing or 
scorn another; but what man, in his right mind 
and but of even a little sound knowledge, will 
scruple at the Whole or scout the Universe? 
Men will differ much in their views or beliefs 
touching theUniverse; in their speculative thoughts, 
I mean, as in the questions how it came to be, 
whether it be material or spiritual, what means 
Creation, or Evolution, and the like. But they 
will not disagree in acknowledging the Universe 
and in giving respect to Power in it. 



BOOK FIRST. 41 

The Universe, therefore, is the one object 
of Faith necessary to complete the definition of 
Faith; which is to say, essential to Faith. This 
satisfies, as I have said, the universality of Faith, 
namely, the existence of Faith everywhere and 
under all mental conditions; for the Universe is 
the object which all men of every degree must 
acknowledge, accept and regard; and in fact they 
do so. But the Universe as the object of Faith 
satisfies also the three other qualities of Faith, 
namely, that it is intellectual, that it is emotion, 
that it is above doubt. 

The Universe, the World, the Order, the Kos- 
mos, is Fact, that is, the Made, the Done, the 
Thing so as it is; which commands and arouses 
our intellectual being. 

Also, the Order is glorious and sublime; wherein 
it satisfies the emotional quality of Faith. This is 
easy to say, as so it is to see; but if I must bring 
it in words to one who hath not seen, I had 
need of the speech of an archangel. And what 
man, if he be not twisted all awry in his heart, 
and if he have a parcel of knowledge, though 
small mayhap, yet too large to be a mote in 
his eye, or else none (for often I mark that a 
man may see clearly with no knowledge, by a 
kind of excellent simplicity of nature, and clearly 
too with much knowledge, but is sand-blind with 
knowing a little), — what such man, I say, will 
make light of the Universe or misprize the Whole, 
the Order and Kosmos of All Things; nay, will not 



42 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

reverence it with trust and emotion, seeing plainly, 
however he speculate one way or another, seeing 
plainly, I say, that the Universe is sublime Moral 
Order, bringing to light Reason, Right, Benefit 
and Beauty? 

Lastly, the Universe is unchangeable and 
everlasting; for being the Whole, how should it 
change to be any part, and being Order, how 
should it become disorder, and being existent, 
how should it cease to be? Nay; but however 
the parts change, coming, going, growing, dying, 
evolving and following one another in new shapes, 
the Whole is the same in itself; for the parts 
can not change to become disorder. Wherefore 
the Order is unchangeable; and the parts move 
and dash only as waves do, while the sea is the 
same. This satisfies the assurance of Faith, its 
quality to disdain doubt. 

This I will take leave to offer in other words, 
and a little more at length. The Universe is 
truth, order, and these in sublimity and ever- 
lastingness. Therefore our intelligence is drawn 
forth, even to the point of serving the Universe 
obediently; because our own destiny is a part of 
it, and hence our duty to ourselves, our true duty 
according to our real nature, is our duty also 
to the Universe. Also we must revere; for the 
Universe not only includes and holds us, but 
instructs, disciplines; and while we glory in our 
freedom, as in the fellowship of mighty beings, 
anon we are hushed before this solemn, sublime 



BOOK FIRST. 43 

order of things which involves and comprehends 
our freedom, passes through and all around our 
freedom, in a mighty and holy mystery. Finally 
we must trust to the Universe; we can not doubt, 
there is no room wherein to turn sceptical of it. 
The direct historical sight that the Universe has 
truth at interest, that things come forth to view 
evermore as truly they are, and reasonable thoughts 
prevail and right comes uppermost and all that is 
true and right is safe — this sight of the Whole 
is itself a ground or sanction of our doubting any 
reputed thing, if the mind and knowledge work to 
such a doubt. For we see that we make not truth, 
nor create power for it, but do no more than help 
it to a position before men's eyes; and even to that 
post we can not forward truth overmuch, for it 
will come thither without us or in spite of us. 
We perceive that things are the same after any 
doubt of ours as before; wherefore, we may enter- 
tain any doubt as possible light, or journey to the 
light, but no possible ban or condemnation or 
injury. But the Whole, the Order, this, I must 
dare to say, can not be doubted, at least sanely, 
neither its safety nor our own realm in that safety. 
There is contrariety in the thought. How can 
we doubt that whose nature and visible carriage 
of itself for the truth is the ground, sanction, 
safety and possible benefit of the act of doubting 
anything? 

Doubt is the half of thinking; for if we can not 
doubt, we can not begin to think, and if we can 



44 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

not be convinced, we can not end thinking. There- 
fore, first doubt, then conviction, afterward doubt 
again, rejected convictions, new convictions, this 
is the history of progress, the way of truth. But 
the course of history is the method of the Uni- 
verse; and the Universe is the oneness of all these 
varying doubts and convictions, namely, whatever 
truth they contain, and is the power which in- 
volves them and passes through and around 
them. 

I will ask the reader's favor to repeat here the 
substance of this chapter in brief summaries: — 

There are four chief marks or qualities of 
Faith: 

i. — Faith is universal, present always and 
everywhere. This quality is satisfied by the Uni- 
verse as the object of Faith because the same skies 
cover all men, and there can be no manner of man 
who will not acknowledge the Universe and do 
respect to the Power in it. 

2. — Faith is intellectual. This quality is sat- 
isfied by the Universe as the object of Faith 
because the Universe is the infinite assembling of 
things in a co-ordination which offers room for vast 
reasonings, conclusion, belief. 

3. — Faith is emotion. This quality is satisfied 
by the beauty, glory, sublimity of the Universe. 

4. — Faith is above all reach of doubt. This 
quality is satisfied by the Universe as the object of 
Faith because the Universe is constant and can be 
no otherwise; "the same yesterday, to-day and 



BOOK FIRST. 45 

forever," with "no variableness neither shadow of 
turning," neither any darkness of fainting or grow- 
ing weary, and among the stars "not one faileth." 

Have we not seen now, to this point, that the 
Universe satisfies all the conditions of the object 
of Faith? It is, then, the object that may com- 
plete the definition of Faith. But more than this, 
it is the one only object essential to Faith. For, 
as I will say once more, the Universe alone satis- 
fies the condition that the object must be known 
and accepted everywhere. For any other object 
would define Faith to be such a thing as one man 
may have but another not, by reason of their dif- 
ferent beliefs touching the object. But this by no 
means we should do; but interpret the universal- 
ity of Faith, and its continuance in human growth, 
nothing short of its being proper to human nature 
and belonging to every man in health of mind 
let him deny what he can. For the essential object 
of Faith must be that which deny he can not. 
The Universe is that object. Men may differ 
in beliefs about the Universe, but not in be- 
lieving in it; and all objects of Faith otherwise 
named are but the Universe plus certain views of 
the Universe, or the Universe as described and 
shaped by apprehension one way or another. 

If any say that this is not true, because there 
are pessimists abroad who despise the Universe 
and call it ill-conceived, I answer that Faith 
is natural, and yet not all have it, as also the case 
is with sight and hearing. Pessimists I can treat 



46 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

only as just so unwhole and unhealthful. If all 
parts be balanced and in health, I can not believe 
a pessimist possible. They will scout this view of 
them and say it is ignorant or little-minded. 
But I may opine a deficiency without having a 
contempt for it. If a blind man should insist 
that all were blind and had but a phantasy of 
seeing, I could not agree with him, but must be 
sorry for him respectfully, let him call me what 
he would. 

Therefore, I conclude, and say again, that all 
the qualities of the nature of Faith, and the uni- 
versality of it among men, are satisfied by this one 
object of it, namely, the Universe as a moral 
conception, as Order which brings to pass truth 
and right. He who accepts the Universe in this 
manner is a man of Faith, however he doubt or 
hesitate or hang poised regarding any other belief 
whatsoever. 



CHAPTER XI 
True Definition of Faith. 

We have seen, as I hope, that Faith is universal 
(Chapter IV.), that it is intellectual (Chapter V.), 
emotional (Chapter VI. ),indubitable(ChapterVIL), 
and that the one object of Faith which answers to 
all these qualities is — the Universe. Now, by this 
object we may give a brief definition of Faith. 
For Faith is the human spirit, which is to say, 



BOOK FIRST. 47 

reason and feeling, expended on this object. 
Hence if we express the disposition of the soul in 
terms of this object, we shall define Faith. 

For a brief definition, I will offer one modeled 
on Hegel's description of Liberty, which is the 
most splendid in the world, namely that "Freedom 
is the spirit's realization of its own nature. " In like 
manner, Faith is the spirit's realization of the 
nature of things. To say the same with a figure, 
Faith is the soul's baptism into the Universe. 

Men are baptized into churches and creeds. 
This is to accept some particular belief. But this 
is not Faith. Faith is nobler. It is baptism into 
the Universe as a sacred conception, a moral order 
which brings truth to light. 

From the letter of a friend to me I take 
the following, which expands this definition of 
Faith: 

" I cannot see the end of much that I must do, 
I cannot predict, but I have learned that the 
greatest test any one can be put to is to go fear- 
lessly on in the right; and have Faith enough to 
rest therein, looking neither backward nor forward, 
up nor down — rest I say in the sense of stability 
as a rock in the hillside, as though there were no 
yesterday. The hill bore the storm then; it is 
gone; it has the sunshine of to-day; it is ready for 
to-morrow. I have several experiences of the 
wonderful discipline there is in Faith, and the defi- 
nition thereof is now realized to my mind. Faith 
is a misapplied word when set to the theological 



48 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

scheme as the way of salvation; Faith to me now is 
something which follows truthful, disinterested, 
sincere action, and stands waiting to see whether 
you will accept whatever comes of such conduct, 
though it lead where you know not, see not, 
away entirely from your own plan. The point is 
whether I shall wish I had not done this or that, 
whether I shall wish another way had been chosen, 
whether I will seek to retrace steps, or whether I 
can say, I saw not, and yet I acted to do right. 
Gloom and anxieties followed and beset me every- 
where, light has not come, night has set in; still 
the right existed all the same, and it follows not 
that it was wrong because building thereon all was 
not to be illuminated immediately. When thus I 
have thought, then the rest I have spoken of 
comes in, a something which does not permit of 
carrying yesterday into to-day's work, or of shad- 
owing to-morrow before it comes. Then Faith 
stands waiting to see whether you are willing to 
leave results to the right of yesterday to work its 
own way, though not your way. I have learned a 
little of it, feebly indeed yet, but I have seen 
enough light to gladden my heart on the way. I 
hope to have greater knowledge." 

If a plain summary and analytical definition be 
desired, I will offer it thus: Faith is an affection of 
the mind toward the Universe in three ways — 1. 
— Apprehension or belief that the Universe is Moral 
Order: 2. — Implicit trust in the Moral Order, 
above doubt, void of fear: 3. — Emotion, joy, awe, 



BOOK FIRST. 49 

reverence, aroused by the beauty, glory, sublimity 
of the Universe. 

As I have said before (Chapter VIII.), I am far 
from conceiving that this account of Faith de- 
scribes in full the only vast capacity of soul which 
hath gone under this name. Faith hath many 
beautiful aspects, many rich and deep relations in 
religion, delicate traits and activities of spiritual 
life, which I have not so much as looked toward 
herein; nay, I think that Faith very like can not 
be described in its fulness with our present knowl- 
edge of religion. For there seems much to be 
gathered yet before we can know the depth of the 
fulness of any term in religion. Yet I think the 
account of Faith foregoing herein will give us to 
know it not untruthfully, albeit not completely; 
and especially that the four traits which we have 
found in Faith lead us trustworthily to the 
object of it. So that we may rest securely in this, 
that Faith is Universal, Intellectual, Emotion, 
Certitude; whereof the one essential Object is the 
Universe. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Beauty and Glory of this View of Faith. 

The exceeding worth of Faith, as this view of 
it sets it forth, the beauty of it to the mind and 
the joy of it to the spirit, deserve to be said briefly 
under five heads, in ending the first Book of this 
little treatise. 



50 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

I. — Faith, as herein it is conceived, as Trust in 
the Universe, or The Spirit's Realization of the 
Nature of Things, is delightful and refreshing 
because it frees us from the tyranny of conscience 
over thought. I am sure it is common experience 
that, if one be trained and instructed to take 
certain doctrines for Faith, or to reverence the 
receiving of them as an act of Faith, then if by 
dint of reason which he can not withstand he 
begin to doubt and thereupon to examine, con- 
science makes a false charge on him. He feels a 
reproach, as if he were doing wrong. The inward 
monitor, because astray under the fogs of teachings 
and associations which are holy and precious, 
distinctly tells him that he doubts wickedly 
and ought to put away his profane questioning. 
At least, I can answer in myself that conscience 
does so, and from thoughtful other persons I have 
both heard and read of like sufferings. Now, all 
this erring tyranny, these false pangs, vanish at 
once before the light and virtue of the truth 
of Faith, that it is trust in the Universe. For 
with this Faith naught is to be feared from any 
questioning of the Universe or search of it, 
which is what an exercise of the reason is. Thus 
we may hold a belief very reverently and tenderly, 
and yet, by reason of Faith, be not agonized, 
if it be questioned either in our own soul or by 
others. 

2. — This high Faith is a joy and glory also 
because it is the source of the unmixed joy of a 



BOOK FIRST. 51 

thought. A thought is the effect on us of a relation 
of things in the Universe. It is a blissful percep- 
tion that something is true, or a brave guess that 
something may be true. Now if thought be free 
and unreproached in this exercise, the sight or the 
surmise is an exceeding great joy. What bliss, 
but the love that follows thought, is to be compared 
to the joy of a thought? — if it be free. For 
thought is like the body, which being made in 
order to move, if it be chained so that it can not 
move, then the effort to move is pain. But the joy 
of a thought, of a sight of what something is in the 
Universe or an image of what it may be, is very 
great, if the thought move without fetters or 
reproaches. Therefore true Faith renders thought 
a pure joy, an exuberant delight, because Faith 
makes thought free of the Universe, bidding it 
enter, — search, possess, fear nothing, like a king 
at home. 

3. — This view of Faith also awakes an ecstasy 
of sense of the beauty of the earth and of the 
human world on the earth. The physical loveliness 
of Nature becomes plainer and more delightful to 
eyes that look on Nature as a very excellent order, 
a glorious universe of lights and worlds of which 
our sunny earth is one, all arrayed together in an 
order and perfectness which hath naught frightful 
in it, but every blessed thing, and is busy with 
bringing forth truth and publishing peace. So, 
too, in the moral world of men, very beautiful is 
human life and radiant is history and rich the 



52 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

human countenance unto eyes of Faith, that have 
sight of the simplicity of the moral law, and see 
all things working together to bring truth to light, 
and behold, as Socrates said, that "no evil can 
happen to a good man, either in this life or after 
death." The Faith which is the spirit's realization 
of the Nature of things gives us to look forth and 
see in this manner, and therefore brings the beauty 
of the heavens close to us. 

4. — But more than this, Faith gives us to feel 
at home in the infinite beauty. A sense of kinship 
and unity therewith, very blessed, arises in us. 
This great beauty not only is beautiful but is 
our beauty. We are kin with it. Its sounds 
echo in us. Its lights reflect in us. It fits unto 
us. It is our home. The poet Vaughan says 
" Prayer is the world in tune," by which I suppose 
he means what Israel has sung richly in the 
Psalm cxlviii. and again in another way in the 
Chapters xxxvm. and xxxix. of Job and again 
in "The Song of the Three Holy Children," and 
in many other places, to-wit, that the mingling of 
all the sounds of the earth is like an anthem of 
praise; for thus occur the words in Vaughan's 
song of The Morning Watch: 

" O Joys! infinite sweetness! with what flowers 
And shoots of glory my soul breaks and buds! 

All the long hours 

Of night and rest, 

Through the still shrouds 

Of sleep and clouds, 



BOOK FIRST. 53 

This dew fell on my breast; 

O how it bloods 
And spirits all my earth! Hark! in what rings 
And hymning circulations the quick world 

Awakes and sings! 

The rising winds 

And falling springs, 

Birds, beasts, all things, 

Adore Him in their kinds. 

Thus all is hurled 
In sacred hymns and order, the great chime 
And symphony of Nature. Prayer is 

The world in tune, 

A spirit-voice 

And vocal joys 

Whose echo is heaven's bliss." 



Now, as the poet says that the tunefulness of 
all sounds together is a praise-hymn, or, as he has 
it, "Prayer is the world in tune," so may I say 
that Faith is the world and the soul attuned 
together, one to the other, the soul being brought 
to a sweet chord with the world and knowing the 
harmony with joy; or, as I may say, claiming the 
world and declaring it of itself and itself of the 
world. This sense of unity, of kinship, of peace, 
and of a tie of love that can not be unknit, is 
a beauty and light of simple and true Faith. 

5. — Finally this Faith hath such a beauty and 
glory in it because it supports such a depth and 
earnestness and power of belief. Truly, what 
believers of any belief this Faith, being above all 
beliefs, makes! It is only they of this pure Faith 



54 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

who are mighty in conviction and hold their 
thoughts with great strength. For being free, 
they believe what they believe, as first they gain 
it, with the might of their minds. And also, 
coming thus close to Nature, and with kinship of 
heart, continually they gather from Nature's lap 
new facts and riches to become objects of delightful 
conviction. Fichte describes the envy that the 
sensual man would feel if truly he could know for 
one instant the meaning of spiritual blessedness. 
In like manner, if they who talk loudly of their 
Faith, meaning thereby a polemic, a pugnacity for 
creed, or a contempt of reason and a giving up of 
themselves to forms and doctrines, could conceive 
for a moment the believing power of a man of 
true Faith, I am very sure they would be covered 
first with shame and then with joyful desire, 
saying like the disciples on the Mount of Trans- 
figuration, "Let us build us tabernacles and stay 
here." 



BOOK SECOND. 



CHAPTER I. 

Transition to Trust in our own Souls. 

The first Book, if I have come at the truth, has 
brought us to this, that true Faith is Trust in the 
Universe. Or, in other phrase, Faith is Realiza- 
tion of the Nature of Things. From this we go on 
to one special part or form of trust in the Universe, 
namely, trust in our own souls; and to one par- 
ticular part of the Realization of the Nature of 
Things, namely, realization of our own nature. 

The transition is natural and inevitable. We 
can not avoid it. We must walk in the path of it, 
if we walk at all. 

We weigh in our minds, we examine critically 
and we conclude as to the qualities and arrange- 
ment of the sensible things of the Universe. Nay, 
we test our conclusion and make knowledge of it 
by experiment; and experiment is in itself a 
subjecting of external things to our will, which 
then we go on to do still more by the knowledge 
which comes of experiment. 

Moreover, the study of the outward and sensible 
Universe is very difficult. Long labor, patience, 

55 



56 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

devotion, ingenious devising, must go into it. We 
see this difficulty to be the price of the power, the 
natural tax, if so I may express it, levied on mind. 
For nothing is to be had without some effort, and 
the better things cost the more, and the exercise of 
intelligence has the very highest price affixed to it, 
which is to say, the greatest devotion and effort. 

Therefore because we observe, search, study, 
affect the outward Universe, we must go on from 
it to the thought of that observing and studying 
power of us, which we name Mind or Soul. 
With this transition, the true idea of Faith leads 
us at once to a grand result touching ourselves, 
namely, that we may trust our own souls! 

If we trust in the Universe, which is to say, 
trust the moral order thereof, then we must trust 
our reason, which is the seeing power of the 
soul; else how know we that we apprehend the 
moral order? With what surety of spirit can we 
trust anything if the eye of the mind which judges 
the trust be unsound and its pictures untrue, 
distorted? I deny not that the mind's eye, like 
the body's, must learn to see, and can not report 
truly without exercise and discipline. But unless 
with the discipline the mind soon see some things 
as they are, and grow in this power, gathering 
greater numbers of things continually into un- 
distorted vision wherein they appear as they are, 
then to walk in any way is impossible. To trust 
anything if our faculty be distorted is only un- 
intelligent and perverse. 



BOOK SECOND. 57 

Moreover, it is a part and trait of trust in the 
moral order of the Universe that we are able 
to doubt anything, and to "test all things, holding 
fast to that which is good. " Before we give trust to 
anything we may search whether really it be truth; 
that is, whether it belong in the Universe which 
we trust. But unless the mind be trustworthy 
and trusted, this doubt, suspension, examination, 
and indeed all effort, is but folly and mockery. 

Therefore to be strong to hold this lofty doctrine 
of Faith, that it is Trust in the Universe, we 
must feed on the substance of the trustworthiness 
of our mental nature and follow reverently the lead 
of Reason. True, trustworthiness is not the same 
as infallible sight. We are but fallible and finite. 
Therefore we must be modest, sympathetic, im- 
partial, careful, laborious. Nevertheless, we must 
have stable trust and belief in our mental being. 
We can go no step unto trusting the Universe if 
we confide not in our own souls; and yet, con- 
trariwise, we can not come at all to this confidence 
in ourselves if we have not trust in the All. 
From Faith, which is trust in the Whole, unto 
trust in our own souls, and from this trust in the 
soul unto the trust of the Universe, which is 
Faith, there is transition either way, to and fro, 
nor can the one exist without the other. 

Of this nature of Faith, that it is of a piece 
with trust in our own souls, Joseph Henry Allen has 
said nobly:* " The facts of religious history teach 

* Christian History, Third Period, p. 14. 



58 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

us very little unless they teach us that a time of 
spiritual crisis has always to be met in just that 
way," — namely, by a man's declaration of his own 
spiritual sight. "The strong conviction of one 
man must be brought face to face with whatever 
we can understand by the phrase ' powers of the 
world,' — whether prejudice of education, govern- 
ment authority, temptation of indolence, sympathy, 
friendship, interest, personal peace and quiet, — 
and must be strong enough to overcome. 

" It must be the conviction of one man standing 
alone. A thousand more may do as he does, but 
each man's act must be his own. The encourage- 
ment of example, the sympathy of friends, the 
thousand wholesome influences that surround one, 
and keep his heart whole, — these are for ordinary 
men and for ordinary times. The moment of 
crisis, whether in a conspicuous epoch of history, 
or in one man's lonely struggle in the dark, 
demands a Faith that absolutely dispenses with 
them all." 



CHAPTER II. 

That Trust in the Soul has Fared 111 in History. 

In truth I need say little, and linger not at all, 
on this proposition. For it is common report. 
What names have been given to trust in one's own 
soul? What but Heresy, Vanity, Pride, Arrogance, 
Obstinacy, Impiety, and many such-like. Fanati- 



BOOK SECOND. 59 

cism and Superstition always have called them- 
selves Faith. Yet I should say they were the very 
opposites thereof. For, Faith is trust in the 
Universe; but is not Superstition of the very sub- 
stance of being afraid in the Universe? And, 
Faith being calm with the sense of the Almightiness 
of the truth to prevail, is not Fanaticism the same 
as being fearful about the truth and thereupon 
taking it furiously under our patronage? Notwith- 
standing, these things, Fanaticism and Supersti- 
tion, always have dubbed themselves Faith; and 
thereupon they have set up a creed, a book, a 
prophet, a ceremony, like the brazen serpent, 
saying it is the one way of salvation. Whereupon, 
to declare, by reason and on authority of one's 
own soul, that such a thing truly is not the one way 
of salvation, nor could be, and that no form or creed 
could be the one sole way — nay, not to declare 
in that manner, not so much as to declare, but 
even to doubt, this is held impiety and perdition. 
To give details and instances of this manner of 
putting away trust in the soul and of decrying it, 
were but to recite the history of any priesthood; 
nor is any more notorious in this point than the 
Christian priesthood. 

Again, it has been very common in religion, 
and very notable in the Christian religion, to 
declare the world and mankind a fallen and 
apostate creation, overwhelmed with evil and with 
the ruin that comes of it. How then, in such 
a view, can there be a place for trust of our own 



60 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

soul? — since that is as fallen and perverted as all 
else in creation, nay, by the fall and wickedness of 
the soul all other misery and perversion has come 
about. 

Moreover, there is a reason in the very forms 
and creeds and traditions themselves why they can 
not be held erect unless the soul be put at fault 
and discredited. For these old forms and creeds 
stretch back into a mysterious antiquity filled 
with colors of miracles, with shining "wonders 
and signs," with all the wild imagery of a prim- 
itive and simple age. The forms or doctrines are 
as fantastic, rough, uncouth or cruel as the unin- 
structed, ignorant times that reared them. When 
mankind has grown older and gathered knowledge, 
these crude things of the childhood of the race 
are cast aside. But the priests will not have it so, 
and resist the progress. Therefore always it has 
been taught that there are sacred limits to human 
thinking, that the divine must be parted from the 
human (unnatural and impious divorce!) and the 
inquiring mind must busy itself with human things, 
having no part nor duty in the divine but to 
receive them obediently from that sacred past 
wherein it is said God talked with men, but now 
no longer he does so. 

It is thus that Lord Bacon bewails the "inter- 
mingling of divine and human knowledge," and 
"the tempering of one with the other," because, 
says he, it has filled not only Science "full of 
speculative fictions and vanities," but divinity 



BOOK SECOND. 6l 

"full of heresies." " More worthy it is," says he, 
"to believe than to think or know, considering 
that in knowledge (as now we are capable of it) 
the mind suffereth from inferior natures, but in all 
belief it suffereth from a spirit which it holdeth 
superior and more authorized than itself. "* Which 
is to say, we must hold it better to believe, on 
some great command, than to think for ourselves, 
because it is better to be subject to a high authority 
than to our own inferiority. But what a thing 
belief is, to be made a question of expediency! For 
it is a point of duty that we take ourselves and 
thereupon carefully employ ourselves in searching 
what is true; since if we can not lay down our 
answerableness unto the truth, neither can we 
delegate it to another, which is but another way of 
laying it down. And however at the end of 'a race 
the swifter genius will come out first, yet at the 
beginning all start from the same line of duty; and 
to be found on the road is faithfulness. 

Furthermore, what a thought of a greater spirit 
is it, that he is to put out my spirit, and stop the 
putting forth of me in thought by rilling me in 
with himself! Thus do plants and animals act in 
the rough jostling of nature. The giant trees cut 
off sun, air, rain, the earth's juices, from little 
seedlings, and shade them out of life; and the 
brute mother hides her young from the hunger of 
her mate. Yet even in this rough society, the 
lovely air-plant gains lodgment on a fork of a 

* Valerius Terminus. 



62 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

tyrannic tree; and there only resting, for a point of 
support, being no parasite, stealing no sap, it 
puts forth and hangs down its tresses of roots into 
the moisc air, and opens leaves to the light. Soon 
the vapors and rays of its own gathering grow 
to a flower like a bright bird on the wing. So the 
soul finds a stay on a height attained by a noble 
spirit; whence then it will put forth itself and 
unfold from within, spreading forth to all helps 
and nourishments in earth and air and sky. 



CHAPTER III. 

That the worst Ill=fare of Trust in the Soul is in the 
Moral Sphere. 

The denial of trust in the soul, and contemning 
of the "light that is in us," is repulsive and 
disheartening if confined only to philosophy or to 
any manner of thinking or to religion and spiritual 
things. But it could not stop with these; for 
man's being is a unit, and if he be untrustworthy 
in one way, why not in another, — -falsus in uno, 
falsus in omnibus? Besides, the spiritual and moral 
lie too close; nay, intermingled. Therefore dis- 
trust of the soul has invaded the moral sphere; 
wherein it is impious and confounding. Thus, Lord 
Bacon is at pains to rebuke "the aspiring desire 
to attain to that part of moral knowledge which 
defineth of good and evil, whereby to dispute 
God's commandments and not to depend on the 



BOOK SECOND. 63 

revelation of his will." Calvin explaining away 
from his instruction its enormous burden of injus- 
tice, contends that this is God's will as revealed in 
the Scriptures, and "What he wills," says Calvin, 
"must be considered just for this very reason, 
because he wills it. * * * But if you go further 
and ask why he so determined, you are in search 
of something greater and higher than the will of 
God, which can never be found." Other philoso- 
phers and theologians have set forth the same 
doctrine with metaphysical subtlety and learning.* 
Man, say they, may study himself and the physical 
creation; but if he push into the study of divine 
counsels, religious or moral, confusion follows 
him, and thereupon wickedness. Vain is it, and 
far aside from any moment, that the moral sense is 
shocked and confounded with the barbarities, 
cruelties, treacheries and lies, occurring in writings 
claiming to be revelations of God, as, for example, 
the curses of David on his enemies, the slaughter 
of the Midian women and children, the massacre 
of all the people of Jericho and of many cities, the 
fraud of Jacob, the allowance of slavery and of 
selfishness toward women."! These are divine 
morals, say these philosophers, inscrutable to us. 
Our conclusions of right and wrong, say they, are 
but rules of action relative to us, and have no 
right nor power to pass on immutable and absolute 
justice. We are to follow what is right for us, 



* See Mansel's " Limits of Religious Thought." 

t See Numbers XXXI.; Joshua VI., VII.; Deut. XXL, 12: Gen. XXVII. 



64 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

say they; but as to divine goodness and justice, 
we are to take the Sacred Word as it is, nor dare 
submit it to profane questioning by our feeble and 
erring minds. Thus a written tradition puts out 
the light in us " which lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world." In the name of God, 
horrible, brutal cruelties are forced on our minds 
to be approved and held holy deeds, by a book. 
This is the worst manner of distrust of our own 
souls. Every other profanity appears small beside 
it. If human morality unfold not in the image of 
the Eternal, and unless 

' ' Nothing can be good in Him 
Which evil is in me," 

what have we to hold to in heaven or earth? All 
our religion then is this, that some Rabbi said 
that some Ben-Rabbi said that Moses said that 
these many dire cruelties and lies were commands 
of the Most High and were good and holy, how- 
soever among us now they be done only by the 
worst men. Nay, if the better and wiser we grow 
the worse these things look in our eyes, still they 
were ordained on those occasions by the All-Wise 
and All-Good, and thereby were right. There is 
no impiety like this impiety. There is no other 
thought in all the world so confounding and full of 
mischief. We may answer like as Job to his 
friends,* Will ye falsify for God, as man will for 
man, to show favor to him? "Your memorable 

*Job, XIII, 6-12. 



BOOK SECOND. 65 

sayings are proverbs of ashes, your defences are 
defences of clay." 



CHAPTER IV. 

That We must Trust our own Souls. 

By reason of the true doctrine of Faith, that it is 
Trust in the Universe, we are saved from needing 
to abase our own minds and doff the freedom of 
our spirits for the sake of any creed or institution 
or system of thought. For the Universe, in the 
moral order whereof our trust is, which trust is 
Faith, includes all creeds, institutions, systems, 
religions; sifts, purines, judges them. And we 
know that whensoever or in whatsoever we have 
found the truth, in this belief or in that, the 
truth will survive; and whatsoever it be in which 
we have seen imperfectly and have mistaken some- 
what for the truth, it is well that this should 
perish, and surely it will. Nay, it is perishing; 
its apparent thriving for a time is but the process 
of its perishing. And thereby it is taken from us; 
and if we have the right Faith, which is Trust 
in the Universe, the All, it is taken very gently 
and we find ourselves not left with naught but 
led unto what really is true. 

In speaking of the Transition from the true 
doctrine of Faith to Trust in our own Souls, I said 
it was a necessary transition, because if our very 
being be untrustworthy by reason of distorted and 



66 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

distorting faculty, we have no sane ground for 
judging or trusting aught whatever; and yet, con- 
trariwise, I said that we can go no step unto Trust 
of ourselves but by means of Trust in the All. I 
wish now to lay stress on this latter averment, to 
the end of coming to this thought, namely, that if 
the All be trustworthy, so must our own souls be, 
with all the reason and sight and imagery and 
love of them, because the nature of the soul 
is part of the nature of the All. Are we not 
in and of the Universe? Is it not a surety that 
we must share its nature and primary being as 
well as its existence? And if the Universe be 
truth-unfolding, right-preserving, evil-overthrow- 
ing Order, surely it must be that reasoning and 
veracity in the nature of man is a part of the 
instrument of this righteousness. Wherefore we 
must trust our own souls if once we behold that 
the truth of Faith is Trust in the Universe, because 
we belong in the fact and in the nature which is to 
be trusted, which is the All. 



CHAPTER V. 

That our Spiritual Being corresponds to Nature. 

To continue that we must trust our own souls: 

It is perceived that the human soul corresponds 
with visible Nature. The two are of the same 
pattern, run in like moulds. The ideas of the soul 
and the sensible facts of Nature agree and answer 



BOOK SECOND. 67 

perfectly. What is preserved and is fundamental 
in Nature, unfolded therein by the long process of 
the earth's gestation and of human history, that 
same precisely it is which the mind of man has 
pronounced most valuable and sacred in himself. 
Plato, in his Ti?naeus, having happily discovered 
the correspondence of the soul and Nature, said 
the sensible World was one vast animal, en- 
dowed with sense and soul like to us, the visible 
things being the body of the creature, so that its 
motions and development in sensible Nature answer 
to us just as we resemble each other. An ancient 
and beautiful thought, embodied in many myths, 
is that there is a secret sympathy between the 
human spirit and material things, whereby the 
things in some way understand and sustain man's 
aspirations, sympathize with his griefs, shudder 
at his sins. Lovers in a legend perish under a 
mulberry tree; its white fruit becomes thenceforth 
forever red. The classical myths stock the earth 
and sky full of fountains, plants, works, constella- 
tions, which arise where a Daphne prays or an 
Adonis is gored or an Amphion strikes his lyre or 
an Andromeda accepts martyrdom. Poetry and 
imagery always have fancied the like; as when the 
Nazarene says to those who wished to rebuke the 
Hosannas of the poor people, " I tell you if these 
should hold their peace, the stones immediately 
would cry out." And at his Crucifixion arose 
stories of the same meaning, like to the ancient 
myths — the darkness that overspread the land, the 



68 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

earthquake, the rending of the temple veil, the 
cleaving of the rocks. 

These myths from the childhood of the races 
carry in their quaint and simple vehicles the 
thought of the likeness of Nature and the soul. 
We stand with Nature like parallel mirrors reflect- 
ing each other. If a human being were afloat 
alone in the wide ocean, he would say, "This is I 
or mine. This beating breast of the deep heaves 
with feeling like to mine. Its sublimity is its glory 
in me. I can solve its depths better than my own. 
In me is the circle of the Nature of all things, as 
the sea reflects and completes the circle of the sky." 

We see that the supreme moral order in which 
we trust, is repeated in the microcosm of the human 
soul, whose "moral laws execute themselves," to 
the producing of life out of good and of death 
out of evil; and that this moral order in us, like to 
that around us, we make not, nor can mar by will, 
nor evade in experience. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Review in Brief of Trust in the Soul. 

To state in sum what I have argued of trust in 
the Universe and trust in our own souls: 

We see that these two trusts really are one 
trust. 

This is because — 

'i. — Since we cannot trust what we have no 



BOOK SECOND. 69 

reason to think we understand or see rightly, if 
then we trust the Universe, that it is good, we do 
so in virtue of trusting our own souls so far as to 
think we read the Universe and perceive the laws 
thereof aright. 

2. We are part of the Universe and belong to 
it, not as if by an accident, or as if an excrescence 
on it, but a germane portion or inclosure of it; 
wherefore if the Universe be worthy of trust, so 
must our own souls be: 

3. We find in ourselves the same ideas and 
nature which appear in the sensible forms of 
creation, and it is plain that we are made of one 
pattern with the whole. 

For which reasons it appears manifest that the 
true and pure Faith which is trust of the Universe 
includes by necessity trust in human nature as a 
spiritual truthful faculty; and again that the latter 
includes the former. It is not possible that either 
should be trustworthy unless both be so. For if 
we conceive the Universe true and good, but 
human faculty false, this is a foolish confidence, 
because the true Universe can not report itself to a 
false faculty. Contrariwise, if we conceive the 
Universe false and bad, but human faculty truthful, 
this is unreasonable in another way; for whence 
then comes the excellence of the faculty? 

The Moslems have a legend that when man was 
made, the Creator sent his four archangels to 
bring earth for the body of the new being from the 
sacred soil of Mecca and Medina. When thus 



70 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

the body was prepared, they say, before God put 
into it the soul which he had created for it a 
thousand years before, he commanded the angels 
to bathe the soul in the sea of glory which 
proceeded from himself. Thus, saith the legend, 
both in body and in spirit man is made of holy 
stuff; as saith the poet, in verse like to the legend, 

"Trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God who is our home." 



CHAPTER VII. 
Examples. 

Examples of this simple and true Faith are very 
many in history — many if they be counted, and 
many more among * 'obscure martyrs " and lowly 
folk unnamed and uncounted; and yet so few 
among the millions of men that the earth every- 
where is athirst for simple Faith, and barren while 
it awaits that rain of soul. 

All the great leaders of men in religion, the 
sacred teachers, have been men of such Faith, and 
this was all their power: Socrates, Epictetus, 
Aurelius, Confucius, Buddha, and of the moderns, 
Luther (albeit with a dwarfing authority and dog- 
matism besetting him), Blanco White, Theodore 
Parker, and many of the like though less famous — 
less famous, but very potent in their places with 
the riches of their souls. All " this glorious com- 
pany of apostles," however they differ in the things 



BOOK SECOND. 71 

they taught, agree in this, that they took the Uni- 
verse for truth and glory and establishment, and 
trusted in it, and therewith trusted their own souls 
and spoke forth from themselves. 

Herein, as I must think, lay the might of our 
beloved Master, the Nazarene. His strength was 
his simplicity of Faith, his trust in his own soul. 
So high was this trust and such things he did and 
said in the courage and might of it, that the world 
has stood staring at it stupidly, and impiously, I 
would add, if it were not so abjectly, saying that it 
was not Nature but Super-nature which appeared 
in Jesus. Men were confounded because so they 
were mixed up with outward things, creeds, books, 
churches, rituals, that they had made no acquaint- 
ance with their own souls. When have men 
wondered as they ought at the mysteries of them- 
selves or stood in awe before their own being? 
But Jesus did so, as it seems to me; and I must 
think this is the explanation of him, and a cause 
sufficient for any wonders or glories whatever. He 
was a temple unto himself. His own soul was a 
"holy of holies" unto him; the "Ark of the 
Covenant" was therein. He simply told what he 
found in himself, and said this was sufficient for 
present needs above all "traditions" and "elders" 
and great patriarchs and teachers of the past — 
Abraham, Moses, the prophets — as any one may 
read in the whole burden of the great Mountain 
Sermon. 

I behold Jesus, a man of men, in the vineyard- 



72 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

slopes and by the waysides and water-shores of 
Palestine, talking with wine-growers, shepherds 
and fishermen, or arguing with cunning priests 
and scribes. The history of the Christian cen- 
turies thereafter has been largely (is this too 
much to say?) the record of a world fermenting 
with those peasant conversations. What was the 
power? Said Jesus anything new? I know not of 
a new word from him, not one, not a saying which 
I have not read elsewhere, in ethnic Scriptures, in 
Greek and Roman classics, in the Stoics, the Old 
Testament, the Talmud. The Beatitudes and the 
petitions of the Lord's Prayer are in the Psalms, 
in popular proverbs, in the sayings of Rabbins. 
This is familiar knowledge; so that I know not 
why men halt so much from understanding that 
Jesus said nothing new, but that he was very 
mighty because he himself was new, forever new-born 
with the moment, offering his own soul instead of 
traditions; and if against traditions, still only the 
soul, wherein first he listened and then purely told 
what he heard. He was very quiet, though he 
could be roused to " moral wrath;" he was no 
man of action nor leader of party, no organizer. 
Except for his sublime silence, what would he 
seem before Pilate more than a helpless victim? 
But a power from him streams over all men, 
enlightening us to " know ourselves," because of 
his pure simplicity of Faith in the Life above 
things written. 

This is the manner of conveyance of inspiration 



BOOK SECOND. 73 

from one soul to another. For a man may trans- 
port knowledge to us by telling what he has heard 
from another, or what he has read in a book; but 
he can unlock our souls for inspiration and pour 
strength, hope, ecstasy, life throughout us only by 
telling us what things he has seen with his own eyes 
and what voices heard with his ears. This is all 
the secret of Jesus and of such-like Sons of Man. 
This made the Mountain Sermon trumpet-toned. 
He who repeats any thing to us brings us to a 
place of brands where a fire was; but he who 
having eyes sees and tells us thereof, puts flame to 
us with the fire of his spirit. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
That this View of Faith tests Character. 

Faith, which is trust in the All, and thereupon 
trust in one's own soul, tests the quality of a man; 
for it is not to be had without a simple and high 
character. To accept some belief from authority, 
or at least an assent to some belief, and to hold it 
ignorantly or submissively or superstitiously, asking 
no question, walled in from doubt — this is a very 
easy thing. What effort of mind or faithfulness of 
act or purity of spirit doth it demand? Some- 
times indeed it stands in place of all these, hiding 
from others' eyes, and sometimes, far worse, from 
a man's own eyes, that he has none of these 
virtues. The putting on and wearing of a creed 



74 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

is but an outward conformation, like a garment 
laid over us; but what the body is under it, the 
garment declares not. But true Faith tests the 
very truth of character, and will have goodness, 
and is not possible otherwise. 

For, first, there must be a truthfulness and 
simplicity and purity in us that we may trust 
ourselves. Is there a man so lost as to believe in 
evil and trust to it, knowing what it is? Nay, how 
is this possible in reason? For who can see how 
then what the man should believe in and trust in 
could be evil unto him or in his mind? — since it 
would accord with his nature and befit him. 

Secondly, we must be truthful and pure of 
heart in order to trust the Universe. For as a 
man is, so seems the world to him. He beholds 
it with the eyes of a good or a bad spirit, which 
singles out the things like itself, and indeed colors 
the whole with the hue of its own nature, so that 
the world is good or bad as the eye is. The 
punishment of the wicked and foul is to pour 
themselves over all things, so that not only they 
carry hell about in them, but make for themselves 
the Universe infernal. 

Nothing can be more sure than that true Faith 
is impossible to the untruthful, the indolent, 
frivolous, selfish, cruel. For the Universe is not 
like them, and how can they trust and rejoice in 
what is unlike them? Yet how can they trust to 
the base and monstrous? And since, so far as a 
man is bad and deceitful he must know evil, what 



BOOK SECOND. 75 

it is, yet can not trust his own soul, nor yet the 
Universe, a lying and uncleanly spirit lives wicked 
in a seeming-wicked throng, yet condemned to 
moments of bitter scorn of himself and hatred of 
the world. This flash of scorn is a lightning- 
break of the soul's natural trust in the good and 
the true. 



CHAPTER IX. 

That this View of Faith enlarges Character. 

If a man conceive that he must trust his own 
soul, and then he be faithful to the light within 
him and live obediently thereto and nobly, it is 
plain that he will become more worthy of devout 
trust in the soul; and if therewith he conceive of 
the radiant Universe of Order, and trust in it, then 
it is plain that such a Faith going forth from 
him, will return back into him and work within 
him to enlarge all his powers and lift up his whole 
being. The true Faith nourishes the active and 
commanding moral qualities. Freedom is begotten 
in it, and therewith a courage wealthy in industry, 
discovery, execution. Honesty is a necessity to it. 
Who can have this Faith, and palter with himself? 
Out of honesty, freedom, courage, come noble 
examples of devotion to truth, and of self-sacrifice 
for it, even unto death. 

Surely it is plain that he that hath Faith to ask 
no more than only to have light, will be as honest 



76 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

as the light; and he who hath no craving to force 
his creed on another,- will be the more industrious 
to seek truth and the more single-minded to set it 
forth, and will have the law of growth in him and 
be stronger every way; and he who trusts his own 
soul, will stand religiously to his own sight of 
truth; and he who trusts the Universe, will be free 
and daring, and not think to make a business of 
the consequences of dutiful action; — which to do is 
surely great impiety, for the acting freely and 
truthfully lies with a man, but the consequences lie 
in the holy Order which he hath to trust. 

I have been used to think it a pathetic instance 
of lack of the true Faith, that Fra Angelico so was 
hindered by this lack, as is told of him, and so 
thwarted in his beautiful art by the effect of a 
creed replacing Faith. It is said of him that 
always he invoked divine guidance and blessing 
before beginning a painting, and on this account 
after it was finished, no matter what its faults, 
never could he be induced to alter it in any way, 
for he thought that to do so would be impiously to 
amend the heavenly guidance. Now here was a 
delicate and sad difference between a creed and 
Faith, between a submission, however lowly and 
prayerful, and trust in the Universe. For that 
trust, which is Faith, would have made the Saint 
free of his own soul, to use all the labors, endeavors 
and reflections thereof, and brood, try, wait, con- 
sider, try again, and give harbor to every thought 
and light, as he must. Also it is told that he 



BOOK SECOND. 77 

thought it a sin to behold any part of the human 
figure; whence he could make no study of its 
proportions and nobilities, so that he has left us 
truth of nature in art only by his beautiful and 
spiritual heads. How much has the world lost 
belike, because that gentle and lovely soul had not 
that manner of trust which is Faith! For Faith, 
the Realization of the Nature of Things, would 
have shown him that in love of beauty, for his art, 
and that his forms might be true to nature, the 
Universe was at his service, and naught could be 
a bad daring in it to an eye so single, except to 
dare to keep himself from whatever might inform 
and glorify his pictures. 



CHAPTER X. 

That this View of Faith gives great Comfort and Peace. 

The comfort, sustaining solace, peace, conferred 
by true Faith, is very great; yet not more than the 
need. Wherefore it is one of the excellencies of 
this true Faith, that so richly it supplies so great 
a need. This will be plain if we consider what 
doubt is, and how sure that we shall be beset by it. 
Doubt is a questioning of intellectual conclusions 
which previously we have come to or have accepted 
from others. The questioning will besiege some- 
times our most serious conclusions, and no cre- 
dence which we have stopped in at one time can 
be walled up against the questioning at another 



78 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

time. Doubts will scale all fortresses, all defences, 
refuges, sanctuaries. They are like to invade us 
in any hour of thought, for thought is an opening 
of gates. They may shock or suspend suddenly 
our belief in very sacred and long dear sanctions 
of our religion; they may break our rest and 
harass us during long and grievous struggles. The 
only avoidance is by not thinking at all, which is 
mental and moral death. 

Amid these swelling doubts, these tossing, often 
stormy, seas of intellectual questionings, the com- 
fort of the steadiness of true Faith is past uttering; 
nay, even it is necessary to the very health and 
good issue of the doubts and endeavors in the 
questioning spirit. For by this Faith we know 
that our doubts are not dangerous, and no ill can 
happen to us by the honesty of them, however we 
strive and strain in them. To be whelmed and 
thrown about in doubts, if all things were only 
whirlwinds and surges, and naught immovable 
anywhere, were only misery. But one can stand 
in peace and look forth serenely on any clouds and 
storms of doubts, whatever be the roaring and 
shaking, if he be fixed on a goodness and a truth 
which is absolute, immutable, turning on a center 
deeper than doubt, not so much as trembling in 
any uproar. Now, if what I have argued in Book 
First be sound, the Faith which is simply trust in the 
Universe, that the Universe, the Whole, is good, 
safe, truth-unfolding, right-keeping, not to be 
thwarted or swerved, — this Faith, to which in 



BOOK SECOND. 79 

this Book Second I have argued must be added 
trust in one's own soul, that it is truth-helmed, and 
to explore may go forth uncertain only of the 
length of the voyage but sure of a haven at last in 
whatever is true, which is whatever is best, beauti- 
ful, blessed, — this Faith, I say is the immovable 
unshaking, unquestionable thing on which standing 
we have a quiet eye and wholesome mind for all 
doubts. I have met somewhere the thoughtful 
remark that the essential thing in the Calvinistic 
dogma of Predestination is absolute assurance 
of safety — "a thought," says this writer (his good 
insight I have kept but ungratefully forgotten his 
name) " which we must try to ground more firmly, 
but without which it is true that neither peace nor 
enduring activity is possible." We can have this 
assurance of safety only when we dwell in this 
immovable place, this true Faith, where doubts 
can not hustle and drive us, but only invite us, 
and open gates of thought. 

If I may be allowed a figure here, I am reminded 
of some words of a poet, the "holy Herbert " — 

— A young exhalation, newly waking, 
Scorns his first bed of dirt and means the sky; 
But cooling by the way, grows pursie and slow, 
And settling to a cloud, doth live and die 
In that dark state of tears." 

Nay, but the poet errs, or he stops midway, 
taking but half the truth, for his purpose at the 
moment. For the precipitate dew neither lives 
nor dies "in that dark state of tears;" no, but 



80 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

rises again by nourishing a living root, and now 
appears in a strong stem of life, foliate and spread- 
ing into the air. So if a breath of the soul be 
swept across by a doubt and settle cloudy, chilled 
and heavy, if then it fall into the good ground of 
Faith, as dew or rain into the earth, it will aspire 
again, successful, in some living manner, as the 
watery drops come up to be part of a forest in 
whose tops birds sing into the sky. 



CHAPTER XI. 

That We are Compelled to Trust our Own Souls. 

To perceive this, that we are compelled to trust 
ourselves, we have only to consider that in search- 
ing for truth or in any manner of thinking, we 
must begin with trust of something. To assume 
something, or take something for granted, is the 
first step in thought or comparison or investi- 
gation. Now since we must trust something, the 
only question seems to be whether we will trust 
ourselves or something outside of us. But indeed this 
is a question that only seems to be; in very fact 
there is no such question; and herein comes forth 
shining plainly the trustworthiness of our mental 
and moral being. No such choice is allowed us as 
whether we will trust ourselves or somewhat 
outside of us. For suppose a man imagine a 
sacred book, tradition or church to be his ground 
of belief; whence his trust, as he conceives, is 



BOOK SECOND. 8 1 

reposed altogether in this holy authority. Yet 
there must be reasons why he accepts this book or 
this church and not some other. If then he con- 
sider these reasons and conclude by them, in very 
fact he trusts himself as essentially as if he should 
subject the contents of the book or the teachings 
of the church to his own mind. He may examine 
with bias, pr even foolishly refuse to consider the 
contents of the book as a part of the evidence 
touching the claims of it. This, as I have said 
before, is one of the most strange and mischievous 
facts in men's thinking of religion, the refusal, I 
mean, to admit the ethical contents of a book in 
evidence touching divine claims for it. Notwith- 
standing, if a man examine any evidence, though 
external, thereby he trusts himself and seats his 
reason above authority. For is the validness of 
the claims of a book or church a less awful topic 
than doctrines which rest on the validness of the 
claims? 

But suppose a man so venerate the authority of 
book or church that he will not search into its 
claims; yet he must examine the ground of the 
claims to be freed thus from his mind's empire; or 
if not this, yet the ground of the ground of the 
claims; and so following, to some stopping place, 
when patience or dullness has run to its end. 
Whence it is plain we have no choice whether to 
trust ourselves or somewhat outside of us, but 
are compelled to trust our own souls. Let a man 
be a very idler and examine nothing, yet if he 



82 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

assent to anything, it is for some reason satisfying 
to him; and to have a reason, though a contempt- 
ible one, is to trust oneself. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Objection— That Trust in the Soul Fails Practically. 

The objection is void of force. Also it arises 
in part from a dismal fashion of ''choosing the 
bad when the good is by us; " I mean that the 
objectors see the evils of the world excessively and 
the virtues of it not enough. But as the objection, 
though empty and doleful, continually is set forth, 
I will spend some words on it briefly. 

This objection is, that the exercise of human 
reason has had full course enough and has run 
into all manner of bad things. War, drunkenness, 
polygamy, profligacy, murder, robbery, frivolity, 
every kind of selfishness or vileness, savage or 
civilized, is set forth to us as fruits of man's 
unevangelized conscience. Polytheism, atheism, 
scepticism, all heresies, are called the brood of 
"man's carnal reason " — for by such a term do these 
objectors make bold with the human mind if it 
receive not their book (the gospel, or some other) 
and be not given wholly over to it to the letter. 

Now it is enough to say that there are other 
facts in the world which only a perverted eye and 
hard heart (or if not hard, doleful and dispirited) 
will overlook; nay, I am very sure that a sound eye 



BOOK SECOND. 83 

and a brave gentle heart will see them first and 
most. There is deep and true religion in the 
world, not unknown even to the untaught, nay, 
even to barbarous peoples. There is very much 
honesty, kindness, love, nobleness, self-sacrifice, 
charity, courage, innocence of childhood, deeps of 
maternal devotion, the prophet's zeal, the martyr's 
death. These things make the world wealthy in 
the most noble beauty; and how is it possible 
it can be reasonable to ascribe all the evil to 
the soul of man and all the good to a book or 
church or somewhat exterior? 

Besides, there is progress in the world; there 
was progress in nations remote from Judaism and 
ages before Christianity. Now this arose not from 
the doing of nothing. Mankind has advanced by 
toil, yes, by very painful labors and struggles; 
which is to say, by the sturdy exercise of all his 
strength, bodily, mental, moral, spiritual; which is 
to say that good came out of the soul in the exercise 
of itself; for the achievement of progress already 
was old before any of our sacred books came to 
sight. The slow forging onward of the world, 
therefore, is a practical disownment aeons-old of 
the objection that trust of the soul will not work 
well in practice. In fact — as in the last chapter, 
if it be sound, I have shown — not only it works 
and is all indeed that can work in our putting 
forth to any encounter of mind, but it works 
so well that, if we scoff at it, we do so under guard 
of a civil order which it has brought to pass, with 



84 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

a lusty tongue to whose health it is medicinal, in 
language which it has reared up and disciplined to 
beauty, and with a foolish zeal to preserve great 
spiritual thoughts which never were endangered in 
the keeping of the soul. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

That Mental Errors have no Weight against our Spir- 
itual Trustworthiness. 

In the last chapter I have said very briefly (for 
I need stop but little over' these points) that the 
bright and happy things of the earth and the 
multiform good in it and the growth thereof, may 
be set over against all the evils and miseries which 
are marshaled to disparage trust in our own souls. 
But this appears to acknowledge that these same 
evils are facts against the mental and moral trust- 
worthiness of our spiritual being. But this by no 
means I can allow, but must aver that these ills 
and errors, so seeming-strong, are in very fact no 
facts at all against the reasonableness of trusting 
ourselves. 

For why of necessity is an error a dreadful or 
harmful thing? Why is belief of an untruth fearful 
or fatal? It is not fatal, nor harmful, nor dreadful, 
but, on the contrary, necessary. For, as says a 
Stoic, "Men are not made wise, but have to 
become so." Since the world was not brought to 
pass perfect at once, but evolving, it must advance 



BOOK SECOND. 85 

by the slow rectifying of errors. Meanwhile, those 
errors must be believed, else there is no exercise 
of mind in any manner, no sally-port of intelli- 
gence, no place where the mind can be steadied 
and built up for another launch. And no error 
ever was but had some truth mingled in it. The 
next error will be improvement on the older and 
grosser error which nevertheless was not all error; 
and if the new error, which hath a little more of 
the truth, be received and valued on that account, 
it hath an office like to truth unto the sincere 
believers of it; for the spirit of the holding of it is 
truth. 

The history of science reveals plainly that 
belief in an error need have no harm in it. Hy- 
potheses formed, accepted, made theory, altered, 
abandoned, errors both in facts and in explanation, 
strew thickly the path of Science. Nevertheless, 
how luminous her path! how beautiful her feet! 
The world, I am sure, is no worse, nor ever was, 
for the physics of Aristotle, the Ptolemaic astron- 
omy, or the phlogiston of the old chemists. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

That Moral Errors have no Weight against our Spir= 
itual Trustworthiness. 

I need spend few words under this thought, for 
day-light is not clearer. By moral errors I mean 
ill deeds and bad conduct, or erroneous views and 



86 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

theories of duty and life, or defective moral judg- 
ments springing from immoral or un-moral state 
of heart. With moral errors, I may include here, 
for convenience, religious dissents, such as Athe- 
ism, Materialism, or anything called heresy (though 
these fall properly under mental errors) and also 
an unreligious behavior, indifference, hardihood, 
irreverence, profaneness. Now, what I have said 
in the last chapter, of mental errors, though little 
was needful under that head, applies equally to 
moral errors, and is sufficient. For why is the 
moral sphere of life to be exempt from the general 
order or method, which is the method of imperfect 
beginnings and progression therefrom onward, that 
the world may come to estate of virtue? Why 
should morality be exempt from this universal 
order? 

There are some persons, it is familiar, who 
claim finality for their little system or creed, and 
say truth has come to dwell with them in perfect- 
ness. These persons generally are ignorant, but 
sometimes learned; never wise; wisdom is not 
attained by alphabets or arts. Strange, I think, 
that these learned creed-compellers collect so little 
from the instruction of Nature, from the order of 
evolving things, from the dome of heaven, from 
fields and woods wealthy with sweet lessons of 
migratory birds and successive seasons, the seed 
time, the blade, the harvest, from the arts of the 
florist, the fruit-grower, the farmer, and the obed- 
ient evolution of the plants. 



BOOK SECOND. 87 

I must keep open ground all around me. Bar- 
tol has said, "I will not bind myself to my own 
words of yesterday, nor beyond the moment can I 
accept yours" — I give from memory the words, 
which mean that we should change our thoughts 
as often as new light may show us a better way, 
and that no error is a perdition of us or a disproof 
of the empire of the soul. It is very simple reason 
that in seeking the absolute true and right, we must 
halt awhile day by day in what is relative to our 
present powers. Nor is this less true of moral 
knowledge than of scientific or historical. 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Mental and Moral States that are Harmful. 

It is possible now that my reader may ask, "What 
then? Is there nothing hurtful, wholly harmful, 
harmful in its very self? Nothing to be shunned 
and spurned utterly by all men? Are all things, 
even what now we see to be moral abominations, 
harmless at some time for some men? And if ever 
so they be, when cease they to be harmless?" 

Indeed and sadly there is a bad thing that is 
wholly bad, never aught but harmful, never useful 
or fitted to any condition or time of the moral 
journey of men. But this wholly bad thing is not 
any outward fact, assent or dissent, or any deeds 
whatever, but is a state of the soul; not the act 
done or the creed held, but the spirit of the doing 






88 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

or the holding. For illustration — charity can not 
stand in the act of giving alms; for a pompous 
spirit makes the deed no charity, but ostentation. 
A caress, in the mere act of it, hath no quality of 
heart or conscience. It may be described with 
exact physical notation, like any chemical analysis 
— a contact of bits of matter shaped into hand or 
lip or cheek which are carbon, air and water. 
But the act is a caress when it is truth; it 
is no caress, being a lie, if it be a flippancy, 
a flattery, a cunning, the signal of a traitor, the 
mockery of a libertine. In like manner no outward 
deed or form or creed is the evil thing but the 
spirit in which we put these forth or hold them in 
us. Unearnestness is pure evil. If a man accept 
or profess anything because he is lazy and only 
repeats what he has been told, or for ease or 
ambition, or by lack of any warm moral earnest- 
ness, this is pure evil. But not his foolish creed 
is then the ill thing, but the state of soul that drips 
it from his tongue thoughtless, not proving it in 
his heart. To avow anything as creed while indif- 
ferent to it as truth — this is utterly evil. I fear 
very many do this evil thing, taking moral and 
religious creed from priest or ancestors or custom, 
and going about their business thereupon very 
well satisfied and complacent, but knowing no 
earnestness in their thoughts, no meaning, grand- 
eur, divinity. Yet mayhap there is a deeper 
dye of evil than even this unearnestness. I 
know not, for I am ignorant how to measure 



BOOK SECOND. 89 

the quality of such things; but however, I have 
met a very odious effrontery, namely, the avowed 
rejection of thought and of personal answer- 
ableness in order to save creed. A friend said 
to me on one occasion, "I always have avoided 
carefully all investigation of these matters be- 
cause I wished to have a firm faith." Marvel- 
ous! Faith got by a resolute ignorance! But it 
is the purpose of this little treatise to show that 
such a manner of assent and of asserting the 
assent is not Faith at all, nor truly resembles 
Faith in the least, however much it usurp that 
holy and high name. This moral unearnestness 
as to the truth I must think — and can see no 
otherwise — pure evil, and directly opposite to Faith. 
By this men are harmed sadly; not by believing any 
creed, even a foolish one, for belief is a hearty 
thing, but by assenting to it in idleness, un-sincere, 
desiring comfort and salvation more than the truth 
for its pure beauty; or, to say it otherwise, desiring 
that this or that be the truth more than to know 
faithfully what in truth the Truth is. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

That Failure or Wreck is not possible to a Morally- 
earnest Spirit. 

This is but to say in other words that sincere 
errors count not against trust in the soul, and is 
but the converse of what is said in the last chapter, 



go AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

that, namely, unearnestness about the truth is pure 
evil. It would seem reasonable thence to think 
sincere earnestness and lowly inquiry a pure good 
against which nothing can avail to do harm. The 
one fact that truth is loved, sought patiently, care- 
fully, reverently, confused with no other claim, 
nay, beheld to include all concerns of men, this 
arrays the soul, this forges for us a complete mail, 
this hedges the devoutly truthful spirit about with 
such divinity that all things conspire for it. The 
soul then asks the one pure question belonging to 
the soul, namely, "What is true and right?" 
Which is to say, the moral center is sound; and this, 
like a healthy heart, shoots life through the whole 
being, so that no sincere and lowly-inquiring error 
can be a spiritual destruction. 

It is worthy of remark that the case is very 
different with men's blunders in physical knowl- 
edge. These errors constantly are made, yet still 
men go to work again with their stock of skill, 
invention, quickness. Errors in science are not 
deemed proofs of scientific untrustworthiness in 
the mind. Nevertheless, they may be fatal, involve 
a man in bodily ruin, overthrow him in bank- 
ruptcy, crush him in the fall of a house ill built or 
in the explosion of machinery ill handled; make 
conflagration of his possessions, poison him when 
he thought to be cured. But to the simple, truth- 
loving and lowly-inquiring spirit every error of 
understanding hath the virtue of obedience to 
inward dictates and love of truth. It is like to be a 



BOOK SECOND. gi 

step up from some grosser error; in the joy of 
which ascent, the freedom of the air, wider view, 
intimation of glories beyond, such an error may 
be a prospect-place in a heavenly journey, a 
" Pisgah-Sight of Palestine." 

This blessedness of our freedom, that no wreck 
is possible to a morally-earnest soul, hath two 
sanctions. One is the mystical conspiring together 
of all things for good to such a spirit, as Paul 
said; and in Job, "Thou shalt be in league with 
the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field 
shall be at peace with thee." It is very wonderful 
and joyful to observe how every particular thing 
on the earth seems to arise and stand up about 
the truthful man, and bring him to understanding 
and to safety. "To safety?" saith the reader. 
Yes; and so saith the psalmist, "The Lord shall 
preserve thee from all evil." "But what? Doth 
not the martyr burn?" But the psalmist adds 
instantly the manner of preservation; he follows 
with, "He shall preserve thy soul." If the spirit 
be preserved a-light in us, 'tis but menial to com- 
plain that some of the ways of God "triumph at 
our cost" awhile. Moreover, even outwardly 
truthfulness is safety; for it lifts up the present 
like a peak that draws the lightning of the future 
harmlessly. If a man be simple of heart and 
truthful, things to come must agree with what 
he has said this day, with what he has done, and 
with what he is. It is not possible that in any way 
the event should confound him. 



92 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

The other sanction is that Nature must appear 
to us with a color and form like to ourselves. For 
out of the abundance of the heart the eye seeth, 
which is the reason that out of the same abund- 
ance the mouth speaketh, for we can speak nothing 
else but what we see. As Emerson says that 
wherever we may go we must carry beauty with 
us or we shall find none of it, so, conversely, if we 
carry it we shall find it abundantly; for beauty and 
salvation will run out from their secret tabernacles 
everywhere to mate with what is in us. Though 
this book be one of reasoning, I will ask leave to 
transcribe here a song with this thought in it; 
indeed often song is the best philosophy: 

THE CHAMELEON. 

The tyrant Zouf 

Threw young Mahroof 
In prison, because he won with love 
The gentle Hulveh, brave and fair above 
All the Damascus girls; on whom bold Zouf 

Had turned his face. 
Hulveh's father, Jaafar, sought a wild place — 
'Tis only youth in grief loves company — 
To be alone, and sorrow to the sky. 
Anon he saw a lizard on a green 
Leafy plant; the creature with like sheen 
Was colored: soon it crept forth nigh 
Upon the tawny sand, and tawny became: 
Anon a gray tree-stem it climbed; the same 

Befell — sweet stratagem, 
The saurian took the pearl-gray of the stem. 
"Ah! " Jaafar said, "the creature wears the shade 
Of any thing whereon his foot is stayed: 



BOOK THIRD. 93 

Would Nature knew a converse plan, 
To take her hues from soul of man! " 
With this, Jaafar felt on shoulder 
A touch, and looked; 'twas Zouf, leering bolder 
Than wont, with hateful triumph and stare. 

An instant stroke 
Of blindness fell like smoke 
Over Jaafar; the sky grew spare; 
The sun was gloom; to ground 
The very air fell and clave; the sand darkened and frowned. 
Zouf went; when then round Jaafar 's neck was flung 
An arm, and in his ear was sung 
The manly music of the tongue 
Of brave Mahroof; and " Come," said he, 

" Up! Fly with us! Be free! 
Our Hulveh found her way to me, 

And brought a blade 
With which my bonds in bits she laid: 
She waiteth yonder, under the thicket-brush, 

With horses held a-hush! " 

While Mahroof spake, 

An instant break 
Of splendor fell on Jaafar; the air was bright; 

The sun burned, 

The sand turned 

Yellow as gold, 
And was like water with the light. 
Jaafar fell down and cried, 
"Allah, forgive my pride: 

Now I behold 

That Nature's part 
Its colors taketh from man's heart." 
Quick they are at Hulveh's hand, 
Where she waited — lovely sight! 
Then away, over the sand 
That is a yellow mere with light. 



94 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

So burns all Nature to the simple, sincere, 
light-loving spirit; so shineth back. all Nature to 
the forth-shining of the light within; and though 
there be many erroneous paths in which the honest 
friends, Ignorance and Inquiry, may run astray, 
not one of them leadeth to a black night nor to 
snares nor to any hideousness under the counte- 
nance of Creation. 



BOOK THIRD. 



CHAPTER I. 
Transition to Thought of God. 

Let me state how far now we have come and what 
has been done up to this point: 

Book First, if it be reasoned correctly, has 
established that Faith is trust in the Universe as 
Moral Order. 

Book Second, if it be argued soundly, has 
shown Faith to include by necessity trust in our 
own souls, that we " gravitate to truth " by nature; 
nay, and contain in us a cosmic order complete of 
our own, wherein every act is judged on the 
moment, and no man does evil but instantly he is 
degraded, and no man does good but instantly he 
is ennobled. 

The Second Book led from the Universe to 
ourselves; now this Third Book entereth into that 
deep of us where the greatest of all thoughts 
inhabits. 

Sir Thomas Browne, in " Religio Medici" says, 
"The earth is a point not only in respect of the 
heavens above us, but of that heavenly and 
celestial part within us. That mass of flesh that 

95 



96 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

circumscribes me limits not my mind. That sur- 
face that tells the heavens it hath an end can not 
persuade me that I have any. I take my circle to 
be above three hundred and sixty. Though the 
number of the arc do measure my body, it com- 
prehendeth not my mind. Whilst I study to find 
how I am a microcosm, or little world, I find 
myself something more than the great. There is 
surely a piece of divinity in us; something that 
was before the elements and owes no homage unto 
the sun. Nature tells me I am the image of God 
as well as Scripture. He that understands not 
thus much hath not his introduction or first lesson, 
and is yet to begin the alphabet of man." 

In this passage the eloquent Sir Thomas, be- 
ginning with himself, ends with divinity. ' 'Nature 
tells me," says he, "I am the image of God." 
Thither now, in ending account of the true doctrine 
of Faith, what purely and truly it is, we must go, 
even unto thinking of God and the uttering of the 
Eternal Name. We come now to this inquiry, 
namely, What Faith hath to say to us, and how it 
will lead and instruct us, in thinking of God. 



CHAPTER II. 

Why I have not Defined Faith as Trust in God. 

This question once was asked me by a friend who 
had listened to me while I discoursed some thoughts 
of Faith. What was a question in one mind may 



BOOK THIRD. §7 

arise belike in others. Therefore it seems fitting 
to say here why I have not denned Faith im- 
mediately as trust in God instead of trust in the 
Universe. 

I could not do so because the thought of God 
hath had no meaning or validness to some minds. 
The being of God hath been denied by some 
persons and doubted by many; yet I never could 
think those persons to be in such case toward 
knowledge of God as blind mutes are in toward 
Nature. Here I must refer the reader to Chapter 
X. of Book First, in which I have said why, as 
I think, there is no room for us to turn doubters 
of the Universe and no sane whole mind can do 
so. Yet I dare not say the like of doubting the 
being of God, lest I savor of offence and dog- 
matism, from which even the greatness and glory 
of the thought in question will not save me. And 
yet continually in this little book I have argued 
that Faith must be beyond all doubt and therefore 
the object of Faith must be so. Hence I could not 
confine Faith to be described as trust in God, 
because the Eternal Name hath been doubted 
very seriously and reverently. 

Moreover (although this belike is but saying 
the same thing in another way), I have argued 
that Faith can not be belief in any one or 
another creed or any article thereof, even the 
most intense belief, or most calm and most 
well-thought, or however virtuous in any manner. 
Rather is Faith not the belief, but the love and 



98 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

emotion, the quietness and carefulness, or what- 
ever other virtue, in which the belief is held; and 
these virtues of the believing which mark the 
Faith mingled therewith, might be transferred to 
any other belief, even to the very opposite con- 
clusion. This is but the same as to say, as before 
herein I have reasoned, that true Faith is known 
by a very vast sober freedom to doubt and question 
anything, or hold anything poised in thought, 
except its own one necessary object, which is the 
Universe as Moral Order, in which Moral Order 
lies the safety and sober virtue of all doubting, 
questioning, reasoning. I know not now, nor 
ever could see, why belief in God, though it be so 
solemn, mighty, joyful and precious a belief, 
should be excepted from this freedom of pure 
Faith, or advanced differently toward Faith from 
any other belief, or put into the definition of Faith 
as above question of men in place of that one 
object of Faith, the Universe, which to question 
were self-destruction of Faith, which to trust is 
the ground of questioning all else whatsoever. 

Therefore I can give no such account of Faith 
as would deny it to an honest Atheist. Nay, it 
hath seemed to me that a man who earnestly and 
in simple trust in truth should come calmly to 
such a momentous questioning or denial, might 
deserve above all to be called a man of Faith. 
Indeed it hath been my lot (and there must be 
many who have the same to say) to know intimately 
and dearly such a man, and truly I thought I 



BOOK THIRD. gg 

never met one in whom Faith had wrought more 
deeply. " I want the truth," cried he, "and this 
only is my glory, that in the name of truth I dare 
any doubting, and yet have in me a great peace." 
Surely such spirits are possible, and their daring 
is but the white flash of the cap of a wave swim- 
ming on unmoving deeps of Faith. 

I have read in a philosopher's book,* "Athe- 
ism is a crime, rather than a mere intellectual 
error." I am very sorry for the philosopher. Yet 
I may owe him somewhat if he make me reflect 
once more how much better to be atheist by 
honesty and struggle than theist by accident and 
indolence. 

Therefore I say I could not define Faith as 
belief in God, nor deny it to one who in trust of 
the Universe — which is to say, of the virtue of 
Reason, or of the security and living power of 
Truth, or of the Nature of Things to bring the 
truth to pass — should question concerning the 
being of God, or ask the meaning of the Eternal 
Name, or halt in believing. And although humbly 
I may dare, knowing well it is a daring, to call 
myself a believer in God, yet truly I have met no 
prayer more sacred to me, nor more touching, nor 
more like to be made my own at moments, than 
the cry, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbe- 
lief." Mayhap he who most often lifts up that cry 
is he who thinks most, labors most, loves, trusts, 
lives most. In truth, when faithfully, fervently, 

* Dr. McCosh. 



IOO AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

purely, knowing of no convoy but honesty, and 
asking none, the soul doth unroll serious question- 
ing before the being and abode of God, there is 
then a fulness of truthfulness which is like 
unto God — I had almost said, which proveth Di- 
vinity by the sincere virtue of the questioning 
thereof. 



CHAPTER III. 

Now We are to apply the True View of Faith to the 
Thought of God. 

Blest is anyone who sees in all earth's forms, 
vast or minute, the "unambiguous footsteps" of 
God. Better still is the Zoroastrian Scripture, 
" Him whom I wish to exalt with my praise I now 
see with my eye and hear with my ear, knowing him 
to be God, the reality of the good mind, the good 
deed, the good word." And I like much the story 
of Jacob's wrestling, and his naming the place 
Peniel,* which is to say, the Face of God, for that, 
said he, "I have seen God face to face." What 
is said so much in the Scripture, "The light of 
His countenance," and the benediction, "The 
Lord lift up his countenance upon you," exalt me 
exceedingly, they being, like to the Zoroastrian 
words, expression of the visibleness of the counte- 
nance of God; nor would I take otherwise than in 
very plain sense and in the simple meaning of the 

* Gen. XXXII., 30. 



BOOK THIRD. IOI 

words the Master's saying that the pure in heart 
shall see God. 

In Chapter V. of Book Second I have reasoned 
that our spiritual being corresponds to Nature, so 
that without and around us as in us the same 
thoughts shine, and Nature is reflected in us, and 
we again are reflected or reported back to ourselves 
in Nature, and we behold our most deep sacred 
thoughts or aspirations continually coming forth 
to be known and grow beautiful in the many forms 
of the outward; nor is there anything which the 
outward seems to be purposing and drawing unto 
which we pronounce not beautiful and good. I 
know not what to conclude from this observation 
but that the soul and Nature are at one thus 
because both are of One and in One, in The One, 
the Infinite and Eternal, in whom live and move 
the mutable forms of the immutable Order! 

Now by whatever way this thought, the One, 
the Everlasting Name, God, the Lord, hath come 
or grown up in us — which I inquire not now — 
having it, we have to try what effect on our thought 
of God hath the doctrine of Faith herein offered. 
Doth this doctrine of Faith make our thought of 
God more near, personal, rejoicing, or contrari- 
wise, absent, distant, mediate? Lower or higher? 
Eternal Life and Presence in Order and Law 
which are his Being appearing unto us, or con- 
trariwise, an absentee Legislator, planning the task 
of the salvation of men? The answer to these 
questions I will try now to set forth, premising 



102 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

that I must, offer first some explications and defi- 
nitions technical and abstract. For as I have 
defined Faith to be trust in the Universe as Moral 
Order, I can not discover the relations of Faith to 
the thought of God without first coming to a 
perfect and clear notion of the meaning of Order. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Three Emphases in the One Fact. 

There are three familiar terms which are "house- 
hold words in the vocabulary of philosophy," of 
science, of theology. These are, Order, Law, 
Unity. Another manner of expression or syno- 
nym for Unity is The One in the Many. First the 
meanings of the words and then the relations 
between them must be understood before one step 
onward from this point can be taken by us. It is 
my aim now, in order that I may advance to 
my end, to say, and to show, if I reason well, that 
these three terms all have one meaning, whereby 
they imply and express each other; yet that they 
are not therein merely synonyms having no more 
than a rhetorical usefulness, to be interchanged 
one with another, for the grace of speech; but 
that each one of these terms emphasizes a partic- 
ular aspect of the one supreme thing which they 
all express. For this purpose I will go on now to 
take them up in succession, giving first the mean- 
ing of each one, then their inter-relations, and 



BOOK THIRD. IO3 

finally the special emphasis of each one. Again I 
will ask my reader to be patient with unavoidable 
technical language, and to go on with me, for it is 
certain, if I shall succeed in the reasoning, that 
the fruit will repay the attention and time. 



CHAPTER V. 

First:— Of Order. 

In the reasoning and explication of the notion of 
Order, it will be easier and plainer to set forth 
with an order at rest, wherein objects are fixed, 
moving not. 

Conceive, now, a number of similar objects 
turned out of a vessel upon a table and allowed to 
remain in such positions as they fall in. The posi- 
tions in which severally they come to rest, taken 
together, make a shape or form. But no one will 
call such a mere chance-shape or fortuitous form 
order. Alter thereupon the positions of the objects 
so as to make a shape or form which expresses 
something; for example, a straight line, a symmet- 
rical curve having co-ordinates and equation, a 
square, rhomb, triangle, a letter of the alphabet. 
Instantly we shall say that now the objects are 
disposed in an order. Here it is plain, in the case 
of objects at rest, that Order is Shape or Form 
plus Meaning. Let us call such an arrangement of 
objects at rest a Statical Order. 

Conceive now that the objects on the table 



104 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

begin to move about, combining themselves in new 
and varying forms. It is plain that statical posi- 
tion or shape or form has given place to action; 
and the meaning of action is its purpose. Therefore 
the definition of Order in the case of objects in 
motion is Motion or Action plus Purpose. This 
is expressed by one word, namely, Method. Let 
us call such order Dynamical Order. 

But a Dynamical Order is unchangeable, inva- 
riable, and therefore is to be defined as Uniformity 
of Method. This truth appears thus: A Statical 
Order, being at rest, obviously continues identical; 
which is to say, expresses always the same meaning 
by the same form. Now this identity of form in 
the Statical Order appears as uniformity or invari- 
ableness of the manner of the action if the Order 
be Dynamical. For the Dynamical Order, in pur- 
suing or bringing to pass the purpose thereof by 
changes, with every change will produce a new 
shape or form; but this form must express in 
some manner the purpose or end of the Dynamical 
Order which is pursued by means of the successive 
forms. These forms manifestly, therefore, will be 
Statical Orders expressive in some manner of the 
purpose of the Dynamical Order. Therefore, 
whatever may be the complete end or purpose 
of the Dynamical Order, its proximate end is the 
production of a series of Statical Orders of which 
each one in some degree is expressive of the com- 
plete end. But now, having such a series, we have 
only orders, but no Order unless the succession 



BOOK THIRD. 105 

itself be Order, which is to say, one constant 
motion or progression in an invariable way. For 
if the manner vary by chance, there is no order; 
and if it vary by the evolution of a still deeper 
manner, then that primary deeper manner is the 
invariable Order. Therefore, a Dynamical Order 
is, as such and of necessity, one and invariable in the 
manner of the action. If we attempt to conceive 
it varying in the action or motion that makes for 
the purpose, we have then only a series of Orders, 
but not Order, which is to say, a number of signif- 
icant Statical Forms, but not a Dynamical Unity. 
But the conception is impossible. 

But again, it is plain, touching the two terms 
which define Dynamical Order, namely, Motion and 
Purpose, that the manner of the Motion only can 
vary alone. For the Purpose obviously must 
remain the same as long as the Manner of Motion 
thereunto changes not. But also the Purpose may 
continue unaltered even if the mode of Action do 
change; for conceivably there may be many ways 
to one end. Therefore an Order which is one and 
invariable is so by unchangeableness of its action. 
Thus as the Statical Order, not moving, is identity 
of Form, as is plain to observation and merely 
giving two names to the same thing, so Dynamical 
Order, in moving, is uniformity of the manner of 
motion, as is obvious to reflection and also to be 
observed sensibly. 

To state in brief the result of these definitions, 
if they be reasoned correctly: Order is of two 



106 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

kinds — i. Statical; 2. Dynamical; Statical Order 
is Significant Form and Dynamical Order is Uni- 
form Action unto Purpose. But Action plus Pur- 
pose is expressed in one word, Method. Thus 
Dynamical Order is Uniform Method. 



CHAPTER VI. 
Secondly:— Of Law. 

I have said, in ending the last chapter, that 
Uniformity of Method is obvious to reflection as 
the definition of Order, and also may be observed 
sensibly. From this remark, namely, that we may 
perceive sensibly the fact and conditions of Order, 
we come straightway and reasonably to the notion 
of Law; for what we have now to undertake is no 
more than a comparison of observations and a 
classing of resemblances. 

Here I must ask favor of the reader in advance 
to treat this point, although as briefly as I can, 
yet with much simplification, even perhaps unto 
elementariness. For I have found that the notion 
of Law, although the word is familiar to all ears, not 
yet has become intimately an acquaintance of all 
minds, and it is better I should be more explana- 
tory than is needful for some readers than not 
enough for the advantage possibly of others; for 
neither in this little treatise can we go on a step 
from this point, nor in any study of religion can 



BOOK THIRD. I07 

we go far, without a very clear and explicit notion 
of Law.* 

In defining Order we began with a number of 
objects and observed their relative positions. In 
attaining to the idea of Law we begin with close 
observation of an individual thing. 

Conceive a stone thrown into the air and its 
flight watched attentively till it reach the ground. 
It is moved in a curve. Conceive that a man 
cunning in calculation observes the path of the 
stone from the hand to the earth and is able to 
compute its elements and to draw on paper the 
curve thereof. Let him do the same with many 
different instances of hurled stones. When he 
shall have computed and drawn the paths of the 
many missiles, let him compare them together 
carefully. Thereupon he will discover two things 
which equally are plain: first, that the path of 
each missile differs from every other one in sundry 
ways; secondly, that all the paths or curves are 
alike in an invariable manner wherein they have a 
common character, and each is capable of passing 
into any other by insensible gradations; whereby 
it is plain that all are different forms of the same 
thing. This identity or common nature in all the 
curves then forthwith is stated in terms and may 
be called the Law of flying stones. 



* For example, I have heard a Professor in a Divinity School, dis- 
coursing to the students on "Miracles," aver that "a man violates the 
law of gravitation every time he tosses a ball into the air; " therefore, why 
not miracles? If such things can occur in Academic chairs, there is 
reason for a more particular and more energetic expounding of Law 
than can be possible in a brief chapter. 



Io8 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

Conceive now that the observer and computer 
suspects that other missiles, also bodies not thrown 
but simply let fall, may follow like paths with the 
hurled stones. Thereupon he turns his attention 
to the path of a cannon ball, and of a body 
dropped from a high tower. Forthwith he will 
find, as he forethought, that the ball and the 
falling body move in paths like the curves followed 
by the stones thrown from the hand; that is, having 
a fixed common nature with all the paths of the 
hurled stones. This identity or common nature 
thereupon no longer is confined to the stones, but 
is extended forthwith, and known as the Law of 
projectiles and falling bodies. 

Conceive again that the observer bethinks him 
of the moving heavens. He is seized with the 
thought that the revolving planets may move in 
orbits which are like the paths of projectiles on 
the earth. Unto the sky he turns his observation 
by means of a lens. Soon he has the rapture and 
exultation of finding Uranus and Saturn, and all of 
them from the sun out, and all the moons of them, 
rolling in orbits which have the same common 
nature that unites the paths of all objects thrown 
or falling on the earth's surface. The fiery comets 
too, rushing hither, and anon sweeping off into 
infinite space, and the meteorites cleaving the 
earth's atmosphere, — all he finds to be moving in 
the self-same curves. The observer then in these 
identities beholds with emotion the Order of the 
Heavens and hath a hearing of the " Music of the 



fcOOK THIRD. IO9 

Spheres." The " fiery oes " of the skies are but 
vast projectiles; the bit of substance hurled on 
the earth, or the falling rain-drop, is a little star. 
There is no confusion in the majesty. The ball 
flung aimlessly from a babe's hand is cosmical, of 
the Order of the Heavens. Hereupon the law, 
first extended from hurled stones to projectiles and 
falling bodies, again is enlarged to embrace the 
heavenly spheres. 

Conceive now again that the observer bethinks 
him that all the motions whereof he has studied 
are surely but effects, which is to say, visible or 
tangible things whereof the invisible intangible 
support or impulse is Force. The observer com- 
putes again and discovers that the paths of all 
moving bodies, sidereal or earthly, appear as if the 
bodies moved under an attraction of every one for 
every other with force directly proportional to the 
mass and inversely proportional to the square of 
the distance; which is to say, if a body be doubled 
in mass the attraction which in appearance it 
exerts will have double the pull; but if the body 
be removed to twice the distance, there will be 
exerted but a quarter of the pull. This is the Law 
of Gravitation, to which thus the observing rea- 
soner has come, starting from the movement of a 
missile dispatched from the hand. 

For further expression of the notion of Law, 
let the reader turn with me from the mechanical 
motions of masses to those vital motions which we 
call growth. Conceive a plant examined carefully, 



IIO AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

and all its characteristics enumerated; then soon 
another plant is observed in like manner, and soon 
several; then the enumerations of the traits of the 
several plants are compared, and thereupon found 
to agree exactly in many notable points. These 
several plants thereupon are classed together and 
given a common name as a species, and all the 
traits which constantly they have in common are 
called the marks of the species. 

Conceive now that many plants have been 
examined in this manner and many species have 
been formed. Conceive that then all the species 
are compared together by means of the several 
enumerations of their marks, and that thereupon 
it is discovered that some of the marks of one of 
the species exist among the marks of sundry other 
species. Thereupon the species which have these 
marks in common are classed together in a group 
of species called a genus, and the marks common 
to them are called the marks of the genus. These 
marks may be many, but never so many as the 
marks of any species of that genus, because each 
species has all the marks of the genus and its own 
specific marks besides. 

Conceive again that in this manner many genera 
are formed as the many species were, and that, 
being compared, as previously the species were 
compared, it is found that sundry genera have 
notable and constantly prevailing marks in com- 
mon. Thereupon, as before was done with the 
species, these genera are classed together in a 



BOOK THIRD. Ill 

group of genera called an order or family, and the 
marks common to all these genera are called the 
marks of the order or family. These marks may 
be many, but never so many as the marks of any 
genus of the order. 

Conceive again that by a like process many 
orders or families of plants are formed, and that 
these, being compared, display certain marks in 
common, which set off the objects, namely, plants, 
from all other kinds of objects. Thereupon all 
the orders or families are grouped together and 
called the vegetable kingdom, and the marks common 
to all the orders are called the marks of the 
vegetable kingdom. Whether these marks be 
more or less in number, they never can be so 
many as the marks of any order in the kingdom. 

With these conceptions we are ready again to 
embrace the notion of Law. The marks thus 
assembled are called the Law of vegetable life, 
the Law according to which a plant contains the 
marks which embrace it in a certain company of 
individuals called a species, in a certain collection 
of species called a genus, in a certain group of 
genera called an order or family, and in a certain 
assemblage of orders called the vegetable kingdom. 

A precisely like process with other living crea- 
tures conducts us from the individual through the 
species, the genus, the order, to the animal 
kingdom. 

Now from the foregoing examples, let us 
obtain and state in a general term the notion of 



112 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

Law. It is obvious, in the first place, that Law is 
a method — a method according to which action or 
change or growth occurs. But again it is plain 
that Law can not be discovered until many indi- 
viduals have been examined. A single missile or 
plant or animal conveys to us no more than the 
exceeding number of marks which describe that 
one case or creature. But when two have been 
observed and we have noted resemblance or com- 
mon nature, and finally multitudes have been 
examined with like result, then we have attained 
to the perception of a uniformity of method, or an 
established type, according to which the motion 
or the growth proceeds. This is the notion of 
Law. 

Now, as thus I have defined Law as Uniformity 
of Method, it may be asked whether the Uniformity 
be absolute, like a mould of cast steel, without 
possibility of deviation. By no means is it so. 
Variation appears as plainly to observation as 
Uniformity appears. I know not how the earth or 
the heavens can be brought into the chambers of 
conception unless led by these two principles 
together, namely, Uniformity and Variation. But 
now it may be inquired in what manner we are to 
conceive of the likelihood of Variation; and espe- 
cially as to any one case which is put forward by 
report, or even apparently by our own senses, to 
be a deviation from an observed Uniformity, in 
what manner we may weigh how likely the devi- 
ation is, whether the report may be credited reason- 



BOOK THIRD. II3 

ably, in due presumption, and our senses stand 
fair to be playing no tricks with us. 

In answer to this inquiry: It is to be noted 
carefully that the likelihood of variation from ob- 
served Uniformity or Law turns on two points: 
1.- — On the number of individuals examined for the 
extraction of the marks constituting the common 
nature which is the Uniformity or Law: 2. — On 
the number of those marks. The larger the num- 
ber of the individuals examined, which is to say, 
in the language of the schools, the wider the 
induction, the more firm is the basis of the common 
nature, the less likely is variation, and the more 
reasonably we may be persuaded of an undeviating 
unalterable Uniformity. Also, very plainly, in 
measure as the marks constituting the common 
nature are few, the smaller is the room for devia- 
tion from them. Thus the ground of assurance 
for us as to unvarying stability in an observed 
Uniformity, examination of many individuals in 
respect of their agreement in a few marks. The 
Uniformity or Law which attains the extreme 
of trustworthiness, that it will not shake or vary, 
is that wherein the most numerous individuals 
have been examined in respect of the fewest marks. 
Now, this point is attained in measure as we 
ascend the grades of classification. To give exam- 
ple: When to hand-missiles are added powder- 
projectiles, and to both these again falling objects, 
and to all these again the heavenly bodies, the 
number of individuals is increased unimaginably, 



114 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

and the resemblances between their conditions or 
manners of motion exceedingly lessened; whereby 
whatever Law or Uniformity is made out in their 
motions is the fruit of examining a vast multitude 
of individuals for very few marks in common; 
wherein as the individuals are very many, the Law 
is very general, and as the marks are very few, it 
is very simple and has few elements that might 
vary; wherefore the Law is very firm and not 
easily to be conceived to suffer any shaking or 
deviation. In like manner, a species of plant 
circumscribes only the few individuals of that one 
species, and they have many marks in common; 
but the genus comprises the individuals of many 
species, and they have fewer marks in common; 
the family or order includes the individuals of all 
the genera while they have still fewer common 
marks; after which the kingdom embraces the 
individuals of all the families, and they have the 
fewest marks in common, no more indeed than 
such as show the individual to be a plant; wherein 
again as the individuals are so vastly numerous 
and the marks required so few, the Law or Uni- 
formity which lies in those marks is a very simple 
structure on a very wide base, not easily to be 
overthrown. Thus Law, very plainly, gathers con- 
sistency and stableness as it widens in the ascend- 
ing grades of classification. Beginning with the 
individual, no higher term is found than what is 
usual, since all the marks uniformly present in the 
individuals are combined to describe the species. 



BOOK THIRD. 115 

Thence proceeding, the Uniformity which first is 
attained to in the marks of the species is more 
assured at every step, till in those few marks 
which appear in all the individuals of all the species 
of all the genera of all the families of the whole 
kingdom, the Law attains unto a very unquestion- 
able firmness, even a majesty, and hardly is con- 
ceivable as variable in any manner, but appears a 
portion or sight of the very supremacy of the 
heavens and the earth in the heavens. 

Here then, if our progress in this long chapter 
has been right and reasonable, we may rest 
securely in this definition of Law, that it is Uni- 
formity of Method. 



CHAPTER VII. 

That Law and Order are One. 

Behold now before us these two conceptions, 
Order, Law. We have been dealing with some of 
the most beautiful and blissful apprehensions of 
reason; in which happiness we have now to take 
this one step further, namely, to see that Order 
and Law are One. But we have no need of argu- 
ment to do this. It needs but to recall what was 
reasoned of Order in Chapter V., which came out 
to this, that Order is Uniform Method. But in 
reasoning of Law, we have come to the same 
expression or definition. Therefore it needs but 
to have the two thoughts, Order and Law, in the 



Il6 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

mind together to see directly that they are one. 
The notion of Law comes of beginning with the 
individual and climbing therefrom to a vast general 
conception through the ascensions of classification. 
The notion of Order begins with the sum and 
assemblage of things, therefrom traveling in re- 
verse the journey which Law has come, discover- 
ing in all portions the Symmetry, Purpose, Method 
of the whole, conceiving that all parts and agencies 
of the assemblage are meaning-full and purpose- 
full, which is the very notion of Order, and 
act or mingle among themselves to one end which 
varies not by one manner which deviates not. 
The notion of Law is a vast unity or common 
term unfolded from individuals; but the notion of 
Order is the assembling and companying of the 
individuals in that unity. Thus these two con- 
ceptions traverse the whole concourse of things 
conversely, but, from whatever side beginning, 
each covers the whole, like one arch of one door- 
way seen from east or west. The concord of them 
in the one definition or term Uniformity of Method, 
is the school-language for the sublimity of Creation. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Thirdly:— Of Unity. 

From the notions of Order and of Law the road is 
short, and but few vehicles of words needed, unto 
the notion of Unity; to which now we turn. 



BOOK THIRD. 117 

When we look abroad over things and crea- 
tures, the first view of them arrests us with their 
numerosity. On every side they multiply, and not 
only is there a host of things but the kinds and 
appearances of them seem as vast a concourse as 
the individuals. We are overwhelmed with diver- 
gencies, differences, varieties. But very soon, as 
already explained under the notion of Law (Chap- 
ter VI.), we discover these differences, in by far 
the greater multitude of them, a superabundance 
indeed so exceeding that all the differences beside 
these make no more than a handful, and in 
number count as little as in meaning and em- 
brace they excel, all of which fact hath been 
opened already under the notion of Law — we dis- 
cover these multitudinous differences, I say, to be 
the traits which mark off things as individuals. 
Under them abides a common nature which allies 
the individuals. This is Unity, in which the mul- 
tiplicity is embraced or sunk like innumerable 
objects in one sea. The motions of a hand-missile 
and of a cannon-ball and of falling objects and of 
the heavenly bodies seem very diverse, and truly 
they are so, and the variety of them is infinite; 
yet the paths of all of them agree in a general 
term or statement which is one thing constant in 
all the many paths, whereby each path is more 
profoundly like to all than it differs from any, and 
there is a Unity in them as admirable and wonder- 
ful and apparent as their variety. In like manner 
in plants and all living creatures, what is more 



Il8 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

amazing than the individuals in their variety? Is 
anything more amazing? I know not. If anything 
can be said to be more amazing than another, then 
mayhap the little group of marks that perseveres, 
varying not, through a host of individuals, is more 
astonishing and grand than the numerosity of dif- 
ferences. This perseverance of one group of marks 
through a host of differing things is their Unity. 
It brings all the things into a oneness or per- 
vasion of a Common Nature or Being which is the 
immovable Stem of Life wherefrom all their differ- 
ences foliate. Or by another figure I may say this 
Unity in a host is like a scroll precious with great 
lore or like a sculpture mighty of feature set 
around with a golden frame of a surprising and 
beautiful variety of design. 

It is easy to see that the greater and more 
exuberant the multiplicity of things, the more im- 
pressive and glorious is the simplicity and agree- 
ment of them in one another, I mean the Unity 
which thus we attain to in them by the transcend- 
ence of one term which convokes them all. If the 
things be very many, and very different in kind, 
which agree together in a common nature, then 
the Unity of them will be very rich to the mind, a 
glorious and great comprehension; it will be to 
the mind's eye an intellectual beauty and harmony, 
and a delight thereby, which may be likened to the 
ecstasy of the ear under impression of the concord 
of a great assembly of voices and numerous varied 
instruments in a vast tone and concerted music. 



BOOK THIRD. Iig 

In all the innumerable things, verily in every- 
one of the many of them, is real the one living 
form, one thought, one nature which collects 
them into Unity; whence this Unity, as before 
herein hath been said, hath received another title 
or expression, namely, The One in the Many. I 
know not whether any human thought be more 
exalting than this one. 



CHAPTER IX. 

That Law, Order and Unity are One. 

As in discerning that Law and Order are one 
(Chapter VII.), so in knowing that they two with 
Unity are one no argument is needful. We have 
but to bring the three thoughts, Law, Order, Unity, 
into contemplation together to see directly that 
they are one. This is very plain and even shines 
with a light if we use the exalting expression of 
Unity, that it is The One in the Many. We have 
beheld (Chapter V.) that Order is the one meaning 
in the ma?iy parts of a form, or the one purpose in 
the many motions of a living enginery or organism. 
We have found (Chapter VI.) that Law is the one 
Common Nature, Being, Method, prevailing in the 
many differences of species, genera, and other 
wider groups, unto the attaining of the embrace- 
ment of many kinds and innumerable things in one 
term. Again, Order and Law have been brought 
to one in the simple expression Uniformity of 



120 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

Method (Chapter VII.); which is no other than the 
one method in the many motions and multiple per- 
formances of Nature. Whence in the simple 
terms of Order and Lav/ appears The One in the 
Many; nay, Order and Law can not be expressed 
most simply without these very words (and in the 
same sequence) that utter the great conception of 
Unity. Thus all these three names agree in the 
same wide thought, and are at one, even in the 
very words of them. 



CHAPTER X. 

The Emphasis of Each of these Three Terms. 

If now, reasoning well, I have brought the three 
conceptions Law, Order, Unity into one, showing 
that in truth they are but one thought, to the 
reader's content, it remains to do what besides I 
set out for (Chapter IV.), namely, to observe that 
each of the terms has a special emphasis of its 
own. For though they all concur in naming one 
Fact, yet the Fact is one of many aspects to the 
mind, being no less than Nature itself; and each 
term bears mainly on one aspect of the indivisible 
Fact. 

Here then stand Law, Order, and The One in 
the Many, each term including and expressing the 
others, each one the last up-reach and glory of 
human knowledge, whereto every atom of versatile 
Creation witnesses, yet each one having a peculiar 



BOOK THIRD. 121 

force of its own. This needs no more words in 
this place than will serve simply to review, side by 
side in a sentence, what hath been said of each of 
these terms in the defining of them; thus: 

Order emphasizes the Form, the Collective 
Spectacle of Things. 

Law lays stress on the Method, the Individual 
Conformity of Things. 

Unity brings these two emphases together, 
compounding the Collective Symmetry with the 
Individual Action, beholding thus the Whole in the 
Part or The One in the Many; which is to say, the 
emphasis of Unity is on the Import of Things. 



CHAPTER XL 

That this View of Faith Glorifies Nature. 

If my reader have delayed with me not all willingly 
in the definitions to this point, let me plead that 
the conceptions in themselves are grand, that I 
often have found them, namely, Law, Order, 
Unity, understood but slenderly, and finally that 
now I may leave them and come forth as it were 
from the forest margin which they resemble, into 
a broad and sunlit space of our subject. We have 
now to observe what a glory is poured over the 
earth and the heavens by our doctrine of Faith. 

Regarding the outward Creation, wherein our 
senses have object and delight, Law, Order and 
The One in the Many mean this, namely, that all 



122 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

the motions or agencies in Nature go on continually 
in one unvarying manner, according to a uniform 
and supreme method; whereof aught of swerving, 
violation, suspension, is inconceivable and incred- 
ible. This is what is meant by the absolute rule 
of Law, which modern Science hath conceived 
and reasoned unto plain sight; Law, which in- 
stantly, when it is understood, at one blow does 
away all miracles, " wonders and signs," portents, 
magic. These things go down, not with any 
fright to us, if we understand, nor in any storm 
and stress of controversy, but like an open-seamed 
or punctured vessel in a calm, swallowed up in 
inviolable, peaceful Order. 

And a great burden of them there was, and 
even yet is, for the sea to draw down into itself. 
From the first stepping forth of young Christianity 
to this hour when surely it may be called old, 
miracles and portents, "signs," spells, witcheries, 
every manner of in-break of the supernatural from 
above and from below, have been told and accepted 
without end. It is familiar knowledge that the 
middle ages breathed a saturation of this manner 
of viewing the world. Any stray bone, if once it 
were whispered that it might be a relic of some 
saint, worked miracles abundantly. So many bones 
of St. Stephen were extant that it was a ques- 
tion what manner of giant could have contained 
them. This was too much even for that time and 
belief, so that a proverb arose, "Whoever pretends 
to have read all the miracles of St. Stephen, he 



BOOK THIRD. 1 23 

lies." The world was as full of necromancy, and 
supernaturalism as when the Grecian deities feasted 
on Olympus and every tree or brook held a nymph, 
or as when Jehovah swarmed Egypt with flies and 
frogs, divided a sea for a chosen people and led 
them by pillars of cloud and fire, or as when the 
same fiery race could not content them with the 
simple moral grandeur and religious beauty of the 
Man of Nazareth, but robed him with a miraculous 
birth, a transfiguration, a resurrection and all the 
array of wonder-stories. Although, as I have said, 
very much of this miracle-mongering still abides, 
yet in this day of " the latter rain," the earth hath 
attained some portion of a better harvest of 
thought. When a pestilence has invaded a con- 
tinent we have beheld a bishop of the Roman 
Church issue an epistle to his people charging 
them to resist disease by cleanliness and thrift. 
A mediaeval bishop would have read mass against 
the plague, or the Church would have launched 
anathema on it; as it is told that a certain Saint, 
being troubled while preaching with an immense 
swarm of flies in the church, suddenly raised his 
arm and cried out " exco?nmunico eas," and the 
hapless insects forthwith fell dead to the floor. 

These stories have an affecting simplicity. I 
quarrel not with them in their place, nor in the 
least deride them; nay, but delight in them, 
because they wrap infant religion in many-colored 
robes, woven, if I may use the figure, in one piece 
from the mind, seamless. They belong in the 



124 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

childhood of races, just as fairies, brownies, pixies, 
kobolds, trolls, and all the rest of the story-folk 
inhabit a child's world. But soon even the chil- 
dren grow into so much understanding of the 
sweet serene Order around them that they partake 
of the dainty legends in happy fancy but no longer 
in sober belief. Along such a course the whole 
race travels, and surely ought to have come to a 
like end now wherever education hath prevailed 
and good books have come to that point that 
almost they drop from wayside stalls for a penny 
and any man who hath no more than time and will 
may sit in warm libraries by day or night and 
drink wisdom like wine, as if he sat on Tyber- 
banks with Horace and a jug of Falernian. I do 
say with all my heart that these stories are very 
good for children; and I must confess that still I 
find them treasurable and can sit me down to an 
evening of fairy-lore or to a fine concert of myths 
with right good will. But if I believed them and 
took them for transcripts of Nature's doings, then 
were I no more than a baby-mind in a man's body. 
So is it with the people when once they have 
grown to adult estate in civility. If then they 
turn with tender intelligence to their ancient 
religious myths and legends, it is well with them; 
they are then as a man handling, not without tear 
in eye, mayhap, his own infant garments and 
admiring the loving handiwork of his mother in 
them, like to Nature in the sacred stories where- 
with she hath embroidered and jeweled the first 



BOOK THIRD. 1 25 

robes of religion. But if still the people take the 
myths in literal and crass manner, thinking they 
happened just so in very fact and are historical 
transactions and Nature hath a magical storehouse 
and this is the manner of the appearance and 
dwelling of God in creation, then great evil- and 
loss ensue; for the true beauty and exalting glory 
of Nature and of history are hidden altogether. So 
great is the wrong done to the eye of the spirit and 
so sad the bandaged blindness of it that I know 
not whether John Weiss were not right when he 
protested that of all the ills in the world at 
this date of time, the worst perchance and that 
which broods like a sinister bird over the most 
populous nest of flying miseries, is supernaturalism 
in religion. 

Belike I have given more space than seems 
fair measure to this matter, because it is so hard, 
nay, impossible, to utter fitly in brief, according to 
the measure of my little book, the true glory of 
Nature and the manner of view of it which is 
exalting. Therefore I have thought that possibly 
by bringing the reader to the necromantic or 
miraculous manner of thinking of religion, I might 
effect best that he should turn away therefrom and 
obtain the sublime beauty of Order for himself, as a 
man shut for a little space in a dim light and then 
released might take note of the illumined earth in 
a new and joyful manner. But now I will speak 
of the grandeur with which the true view of Faith, 
if I have reasoned well, presents Nature to us, 



126 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

albeit I must speak in but few and ill-sufficing 
words. That this view of Faith glorifies Nature 
appears thus: Faith is trust in the Universe as 
Moral Order; but Order, Law, The One in the 
Many, thoughts which are a tri-unity in the mind, 
reveal Nature as one infinite, transporting, majestic 
Harmony, which hath been called "The Music of 
the Spheres;" and no less is it the composition in 
agreeing melodies of all forms and motions and 
things on any sphere of them all, like this earth; 
one eternal Manifestation — The One in the Many — 
after one Manner — Law — in a glorious Beauty and 
Symmetry — Order. Miracles, speak of them how 
you will, present Nature as somewhat which must 
be entered from the outside by an Artificer thereof 
to be amended betimes, or specially supported 
in an exigency; and if the miracles be extended 
far, as in all religions they are, then Nature seems 
a play-ground or else a spectacle-camp or else 
a wrestling-field for caprice of Will or of different 
wills. But when The One in the Many hath 
appeared to us, the majesty and beauty of the 
Divine image thereof seizeth all our adoration. 
Then fly away all devices, " schemes of salvation," 
"signs," every manner of miraculous irruption 
whether supernal or infernal, all exigencies, cor- 
rections or amendments or supplements — they fly 
away "and there is no place found for them." 
Then is left Nature unto our vision, everlasting 
peace which man "made not nor can mar," glory, 
beauty, truth, might, wherein "is no variableness 



BOOK THIRD. 1 27 

neither shadow of turning," a solemn temple, 
infinite, still, holy, inviolable. Faith, .carrying 
with her a great reverence, entereth the temple, 
with bared feet; yet Faith also is at home therein 
and frequenteth it with a bright gladness. 



CHAPTER XII. 

That this View of Faith Glorifies the Thought of God. 

True Faith glorifies and exalts within us the 
thought of God by reason of the notion of Unity, 
which is the same as Order and Law. This 
appears, even with a sublimity, yet also with an 
exceeding sweet and precious familiarity to us, in 
the other expression of Unity, namely, The One in 
the Many. The very words thrill and arouse the 
soul, so plainly do they speak of the Eternal 
in things temporal, of the Infinite in the little, of 
the Perfect in things improving, of Love in all 
things. Not only sublime but very dear unto us, 
not only all-wonderful but very near to us, of our 
own household and exceeding close and lovely, 
seems all Nature and this earth unto us and around 
us by The One in the Many; nay more, even 
within us; for we are of the Many and therefore 
of the One, and not parted nor possibly to be 
parted, but the One is within our being; which 
thought is in the words of the great Apostle 
wherein he speaks of God, saying, namely, that 
God is "above all and through all and in all." 



128 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

And these words are the same as the three terms 
which unite in Faith: "Above all " — this is Order; 
"through all " — this is Law; " in all " — this is The 
One in the Many. 

The opposite of Order is either chance or mir- 
acle. But if there be chance, God is not; and if 
there be miracle, then in the intervals of miracle 
God is just so much the farther away as it is often 
that he must come to do special works and trim 
up his realm. If very often he must come, then it 
is because he inhabits not the earth nor dwells 
with us nor in us, but is far away in the intervals. 
If, however, he but seldom come with miracles 
but still needeth to come sometimes, then it is 
because, however he be with us, he is here only 
imperfectly, not in Almighty and Eternal Perfect- 
ness, nor visibly dwelling with us and in us, and 
all things in him. Now in either one of these two 
ways all historical religions conceive miracles, as 
they must, either frequent or rare; and often, as 
in the Christian Church it has happened, they 
conceive of them in both ways, saying that the 
grand and majestic miracles were done at a great 
time, an epoch, when the religion was taught and 
given down from God, but also that for many ages 
other smaller miracles and signs continued, and 
sometimes these were specially magnified for a 
season. But whether frequent or rare, each man- 
ner of conceiving the miracles has its own way, as 
I have said, of putting God afar off from the 
Perfectness of his Indwelling. But with the 



BOOK THIRD. 129 

thought of Order how near God cometh and 
stayeth! Nay hear is not a word that can utter it, 
since verily he is in us and we in him, and he is in 
all things together and all things are brought to 
one intent in him. For it is the very meaning of 
Order that all things, and every least thing, are 
unambiguous with The One in the Many, and must 
seem so in measure as we understand better, and 
that all things together as one thought make the 
one unutterable wonder and glory which admitteth 
not anything as more divine or mysterious than 
any other thing, because all are of God and in 
God. "The Soul," saith a-Kempis, "to whom 
all things are One, who bringeth all things to One, 
who seeth all things in One, is able to remain 
steadfast in spirit and at rest in God." 

It is very plain, I am sure, that if we conceive 
no Order and Law, Nature hath no God coming to 
sight. Far then from us and from truth were 
the glorious Zoroastrian saying, "Him whom I 
wish to exalt with my praise I now see with my 
eye and hear with my ear, knowing him to be 
God." For if miracles be necessary, it must be 
because Nature is imagined something outside of 
the being of God and alien from Divinity; which 
therefore, being apart and alien, surely goes 
wrong and falls down in some manner unless the 
Divinity of God visit it specially to set it right 
again. And from this alien or outside existence 
of Nature (though this it would seem were sad and 
bad enough and truly to be "without God in the 



130 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

world") the path is very short and straight to a 
hostility in Nature, an antagonism unto God, a 
perpetual fierce war against him by the evil being 
of Nature. This path has been followed to that 
end of it many times; as in ancient northern and 
southern mythologies, in both alike, whereof one 
great part was the stories of giants, Titans, mon- 
strous Nature-powers, warring with the higher 
Gods in battles; and the Norse myths, as if by 
a dim conception in the human heart that what 
could be battled in that manner could not be 
supreme Divinity, fabled that the true Divinity 
yet was awaited, and that, the good deities being 
at last conquered by the Monstrous Nature-powers, 
there should be hurled forth a ruin of all things 
from which should arise Divinity superior to the 
old good deities, and creation then should spring 
forth again into untroubled beauty and excellence. 
The like thought of antagonism has lain always in 
sundry forms in the Christian creeds, early and 
late, to be traced in one form of it, I mean Satan, 
if the learned be right, at least as far away as the 
Persian Dualism; and the conception was very 
strong in early Christian heresies, such as those of 
Mani and of Basilides. Now, because of this 
antagonism it was conceived that God must evince 
his control by miraculous interposition, to preserve 
and correct Nature and to show to believers that 
really he did live. But truly this is but a sad 
far foreigness of God, from which the thoughts of 
Order, Law, Unity, if truly we have them, reason 



BOOK THIRD. 13I 

them, understand them, draw him; that it be known 
that he is with us, "dwelling in us," and that from 
the beginning all things "live, move and have their 
being in him." 

As in Nature, so is it in human history. Mir- 
acles put God afar from the whole by so much as 
they bring him into part of it, and they make God 
foreign to all men by so much as they show him a 
visitor to some men. Wherefore by the miraculous 
view of religion, which is contrary to true Faith, 
because this Faith hath part and league with 
Order, Law and Unity — by the miraculous opinion, 
I say, the Infinite Circumference and Circumscrip- 
tion of Providence is dwindled to dots of special 
interpositions here and there; so that the realm of 
Presence and Love is broken, and by as much 
as Divine favors have fallen to these few, all 
other men are in a void. Nay, if the Presence 
and "signs" of God fall to one place above 
another in the least degree, then to the eye and 
the ear and the heart of reason all else is in a void. 
But of this I will say no more, and especially, on 
the other hand, of the Presence and Indwelling of 
God, the Infinite Eternal Indwelling, which cometh 
into the spirit in a flood of light, joy, trust, 
glorious adoration, by reason of the thoughts of 
Order, Law and The One in the Many; for this I 
am sure the reader now reasons easily for himself. 

In conclusion of this thought, the sum of the 
whole is that Order, or Law, which is The One in 
the Many, fills all things with Divinity; but mir- 



132 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

acles, " wonders and signs," which if they crowd 
in leave Order and Unity no standing room, fill 
only some things. Therefore by Order and Unity 
God is glorified in thought, also brought to be an 
Intimate Power and Comfort, being raised in 
thought from a visitor of some time, place, per- 
son, unto equal Eternal Presence with all. It can 
not be but that the thought of The One in the 
Many will turn the mind to think conversely of 
The Many in the One, that truly they all are in the 
One, and no one more than another, being all 
perfectly contained, and no one outside more than 
another, because there is no void — as saith the 
Psalmist, neither in heaven nor in the grave nor 
in the earth unto the uttermost parts of the sea. 
They who have this thought in Faith, always will 
say to one another, like a-Kempis, ''Give thanks 
to the Supreme Goodness, who dealeth with thee 
so graciously, visiteth thee so lovingly, stirreth 
thee up so fervently, rouseth thee so powerfully, 
lest thou sink down with thine own weight and 
earthly things." 

This brings me back to the word which I have 
used before, namely, Indwelling, "The Indwelling 
God proclaimed of old," saith Samuel Longfellow 
in a hymn. Verily "proclaimed of old," for so 
spake all the prophets. From Zarathustra to this 
hour never any man became a prophet by running 
about after miracles and "signs," after oracles, 
writings, scriptures, dispensations, places and 
events, wherein to learn of God, but by taking 



BOOK THIRD. 1 33 

counsel of his own soul, "where are the sources 
of astonishment and power." "The soul's own 
sense of God," saith Hosmer in a hymn; and in 
another hymn, Gannett, " Journey inward to thy- 
self;" and in like manner a-Kempis, "Where art 
thou when thou art not present to thyself, but hast 
run after all things? " 



CHAPTER XIII. 

That this View of Faith is Strength, Peace, Joy. 

I speak now of the individual heart. In measure 
as we have not the thoughts of Order, Law, and 
The One in the Many, and in measure as we 
reason not earnestly of them, and drink not of 
their .spiritual abundance, not only seem Nature 
and human history unpresenced of God, but every 
person seemeth orphaned. Divinity then is cast 
out of this time and only read of as in the past. 
It hath been the peculiar boast of the miraculous 
and arbitrary view of religion, the creed, namely, 
that God breaketh in at times and seasons accord- 
ing to his good will and pleasure to work special 
ends — of this opinion, I say, it hath been the 
boast that thereby each person may be conceived 
specially cared for and the Divine Love and Guid- 
ance are made very plain. But contrariwise, say 
those who think in this manner, Law takes heed 
only of the mass, the whole, merges each person 
out of sight in the race; Law consigns, say they, 



134 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

the longing, striving, weary spirit to a very cold 
comfort in pitiless rigid method. Wherefore the 
miracle-view of the world seems to many minds 
the more religious. But I fear not to conclude 
that this comfort and stay which is the very boast 
of the miracle-view is exactly what it can not 
bring to pass, nay, what it destroys or hinders. 
Consider of it thus: Plainly what is needed for 
strength, peace, joy, is to think of God and know 
of him as now present in this time, and never any- 
where more present than now with us. But, 
contrariwise, it needs but to read a little in the 
history of religion to learn that in measure as 
Nature hath been conceived of as arbitrary and 
miraculous, men always have looked back into the 
past for the full presence of God, or for means of 
assurance that ever he is present at all; and it 
needs but little philosophy to know that this must 
be so. For always it will be impossible for men 
to believe in Divine interposition for them at the 
moment. There is too much toil and sorrow in 
life, disappointment, privation, pain, unfilled long- 
ings, too many shadows that lift not, or lift but 
slowly at the long tender pull of Time. The 
lessons are too many and too plain that man must 
toil, and that his comforts must be builded with 
his own hand-labor. Whence it comes to pass, in 
the miracle-view of Nature and religion, that since 
oracles and " signs" in this view are men's only 
manner of conceiving of fulness and perfectness of 
Divine Presence and Life, and since the hard 



BOOK THIRD. 1 35 

lessons of facts and men's unintended reflections 
thereon forbid hope of such oracles or "signs" at 
present, men always have looked, and by reason 
must look, afar back for the God whom they 
know not of here present, and yet must find or 
perish. Afar back they look into the hoar ages, 
where distance hath veiled distinct images and 
left only a mysterious space wherein devout imagi- 
nation seemeth to look straight through "wonders 
and signs " upon the very being of God. Hence 
spring, as in another place I have said, the moving 
myths of the past, wherein God talks in gardens, 
rains food from the sky, divides the waters, hurls 
down cities and catches up his servants in chariots 
of fire. 

Now when the thoughts of Order, Law, The 
One in the Many, have builded their seat and 
cathedral in the mind, lo! then the past appeareth 
religious only because once it was the present; 
and the present moment hath evermore a sanctity, 
being the manifest of the One who was and shall 
be because ever he is. Where then are "labor 
and sorrow? " Lo! at hand the same; but not the 
same to confuse us. To think of God in the 
present time is to engulf pain and pleasure equally 
in the Infinite Order, in the Perfectness which is 
Law, in the sacredness of things which is The One 
in the Many. All things come to us out of that 
holy silence, which is the reigning of The One 
in the Many. To the outward we leave the out- 
ward, being in a seat of the spirit whence we look 



I36 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

on the outward to know of it, but never to be 
captive to it nor overwhelmed in it. It hath its 
glory of inviolableness, wherein is its impress of 
the image of God. Living with reverence in this 
Divine Order, which ,l hath no variableness neither 
shadow of turning," we say the poet speaks well 
when he asks, 

' ' When the loose mountain trembles from on high, 
Shall gravitation stop if we go by?" — 

and we would not that it should stop, though we 
be caught under crumbling hills. 

This is a coming into ourselves, to know of 
ourselves, what truly we are. Law hath a severity 
which is no respecter of persons, and tosses our 
bodies and our works out of its mighty course if 
we have done contrary to it, or if others have and 
we be involved with them. But we question then 
the more of our very selves, to know the more deep- 
ly that we have life not sounded by these things, 
that we are spiritual and moral being, resident will; 
and we behold with our very eyes, as if we opened 
door into the " Holy of Holies," and know verily, 
that in the inmost of our being, where our will 
hath its mystery of action and is the center of a 
little kosmos like to the great, God inhabits, with 
"no variableness neither shadow of turning." 
This is very vast strength, peace, joy, invincible, 
which Faith bringeth to us from thoughts of God 
by the power of the thoughts of Order, Law, The 
One in the Many. And no wonder it is so and 



BOOK THIRD. 1 37 

that the might thereof is very great; for he who 
hath these thoughts " thinketh God's thoughts 
after Him." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

That this View of Faith deepens Devotion and Worship. 

On this head I need spend only few words. And 
yet it were a theme for many, even for psalms and 
hymns and scriptures and every eloquence, if I 
could have the space and then master the elo- 
quence to fill the space withal. This were for joy 
and exaltation. But for reasoning in this place 
very little will suffice. 

Blanco White, near the end of his life — a life 
of continued clearance of mind, unto true Faith at 
last, not obtained without much discipline and 
pain, wherefrom he hath both right and weight to 
speak, — said, "Whenever the ideas of wisdom, 
order, love, blend together into an imageless con- 
ception, and that conception draws the soul into the 
Infinite in an act of longing love after the Eternal 
Source of our being, how pure, how tranquil, 
how confident is the adoration which the soul 
performs. * * * The mind turns back to the 
business and the pains of life full of filial confi- 
dence, without a thought about acts of propitiation, 
about practical measures of safety against the wrath 
of God." This shows, out of the experience of 
a good man, what is the manner of worship that 



138 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

true Faith openeth in us, that it is a lifting up of 
soul unto what moveth our devoutness, and very- 
far from a prostration of ourselves, heads in dust, 
or a propitiation, whereby to gain favors or escape 
ills, to leap into heaven or dodge aside from hell. 
But propitiation and supplication come of fear, 
which abounds whenever religion hangs on oracles 
and "signs;" devout and pure worship springs of 
true Faith which cometh with seeing Order and 
The One in the Many. " Fear is an elder motive to 
religion than gratitude "* and arouses supplicancy 
and placation before there hath been time for 
Faith to be born of thought and nursed of knowl- 
edge. The savage bows himself before an image 
or the stars or some conceived shape, whatsoever 
he deifies, that he may entreat for somewhat. He 
worships not, but begs; or if he praise, it is that 
his deity may be the more good-humored and 
disposed to his desires. This manner of religion 
is very common in the historical cults, and is 
notorious; I can recall no exception; certainly it 
is the rule with them. Greek, Druid, Icelander, 
Jew, all use sacrifices, vegetable, animal, and 
even human, by which to buy of God, or win his 
good-humor unto, a special dispensing of favors or 
exemptions; and I can not blind myself from 
seeing a like thing in Christianity, in the pro- 
pitiating sacrifice of Christ as Paul seems to con- 

* In this statement and what follows, I would not be understood to 
say that fear alone will explain religion at any time or in any human con- 
dition or any race. We are far from having the data for such an assertion. 
See good remarks on this point in " How Religion Arises," by Duren J. 
H. Ward, § 4 and § 5, pp. V] seq. 



BOOK THIRD. I39 

ceive it, and in the expiatory sacrifice and atone- 
ment affirmed in Christian Creeds, to the present 
hour. 

This, to my mind, as I must say freely, though 
respectfully toward other men as to what they 
include in religion, is in very truth and reason so 
z^religious, so far from a pure devoutness and 
worship, that I wonder not at the exclamations of 
Plutarch in his excellent discourse of Superstition, 
wherein he considers this manner of religion less 
reverential than none. "What!" saith he, "is 
he that holds there is no God guilty of impiety, 
and is not he that describes God as the supersti- 
tious do much more guilty? * * * The atheist 
believes there is no God; the superstitious would 
have none, but is a believer against his will, and 
would be an infidel if he durst. He would be as 
glad to ease himself of the burden of his fear, as 
Tantalus would be to slip his head from under 
the great stone that hangs over him, and would 
bless the condition of the atheist as absolute 
freedom compared with his own. The atheist 
now has nothing to do with superstition; while the 
superstitious is an atheist in his heart, but is too 
much afraid and fearful of heart to think as he is 
inclined." Thus Plutarch; and though I would 
not go with him quite to that end, that no religion 
is more reverent in the soul than a slavish one, 
nay, I would not do away with a barbarous worship 
unless I could put a better in the room of it, yet I 
feel some reason in Plutarch, and especially reason 



I4O AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

that applies to us who have grown into much 
knowledge; and Plutarch speaks as I have quoted, 
not because he sets small value on thoughts of 
God, if they be good, for in the same discourse he 
says, "Atheism is a very lamentable and sad 
ignorance. For to be blind or see amiss in matters 
of this consequence can not but be a fatal unhap- 
piness to the mind, it being thus deprived of the 
fairest and brightest of its many eyes, the knowl- 
edge of God." 

All forms of approach and prayer unto God 
under incitement and guidance of "wonders and 
signs " have this in common, that they are selfish. 
They appear to be a seeking after God, but the 
seeking is no more than a means or instrument to 
compass some desires or to get the better of an 
enemy. This, then, which is the purpose of the 
prayer, is the real inquiry, object, motive, and 
seeking in the mind. But all prostration, mendi- 
cancy, self-seeking before God, vanish from the 
soul when Order and Law are conceived. Faith 
raiseth the soul to heaven in pure worship with 
the winged thought of The One in the Many. 
For then not only we know it is impossible to buy 
or persuade any breaking in upon the hallowed 
Order, but the thought is very abhorrent. We 
would not wish it. Before the Infinite Order we 
bow in such silence as itself moveth in. In the 
habitation of this holy stillness, of immovable 
Order, of inevitable Law, of the Eternal Voice 
that speaketh to us on every side out of the 



BOOK THIRD. I4I 

Many, no selfish imploration can dwell, no barter- 
ing, business, restlessness, ambitions, devices, 
rages, no covetings, no fears. The soul poureth 
forth in a confiding and sublime adoration, exalted 
in an act of speechless pure worship unto the Holy 
One in the Many, whose Being in us and in all 
things is our unity with the conformation, end, 
and moral order of the Universe. 



CHAPTER XV. 

That this View of Faith is a Revealer of God. 

We have come nearly to the end together, kindly 
reader, so that I have only this one more thought 
to bring forward; and to that I may believe you 
have come already in your own mind. If our 
course to this point have been reasoned well, we 
have beheld very plainly that the true view of 
Faith doth purify and infinitely exalt our thoughts 
of God. It is now to be said that this Faith also 
revealeth God and openeth two of the many eyes 
of the mind to behold him. One eye that thus is 
opened is reason; which appears thus: Return 
for a moment to the definition of Order, namely, 
that it is Form plus Meaning, or, in the dynamical, 
Action plus Purpose. In this conception and in 
the words of it is locked the positing of two intel- 
ligences, one contemplating the Order and able to 
perceive Meaning and Purpose, the other the 
Being of the Order, of the Meaning therein, and 



I42 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

of man, the contemplating being who is in the 
Order and of it, and yet by the mystery of his 
intelligence looketh out on it and judgeth of it. 
This is a thought which can be named only with 
The Great Name. 

But again: What is the opposite of Action 
plus Purpose? Plainly Action without Purpose, 
which is Chance, But what again is the opposite 
of Chance? Plainly Will, which is to say, Reason, 
Preference, Intention! Here again is the thought 
which hath no way to be called but by The Great 
Name. 

But again: Can the One in The Many have 
any meaning short of this, that whatever is ideal 
in the Many hath itself in the One? But intellec- 
tion and determination and virtue are ideal in the 
Many, and all things tend and move unto these 
excellencies. Therefore these belong to The One 
in the Many. Inversely, but with the same mean- 
ing, Marcus Aurelius saith, "Reverence that 
which is best in the Universe; and this is that 
which makes use of all things and directs all 
things. And in like manner also reverence that 
which is best in thyself; and this is of the same kind 
as that." Here again is the thought which hath 
no opening into expression but by The Great 
Name. 

The other eye of the mind that true Faith 
opens to behold God, is emotion, awe, exaltation. 
For to this appeals whatever is grand, sublime, 
glorious. Therefore a very great, exalted, adorable 



BOOK THIRD. 143 

conception of God is more easy to be received 
than a meager and low thought of him, turneth 
the mind unto a strong believing and moveth it to 
be assured that God is; as I have heard that 
Bossuet was moved, listening to Vincent de Paul, 
and exclaimed, " He speaks of God in a way so 
wise and grand that God himself seems to speak 
through his mouth; " and as I myself once heard 
a good man say, who strangely liked to call himself 
atheist, " I listened to a wise sage last night, and 
he spoke of God so nobly that I trembled for my 
atheism." Now the conceptions of Order, Law, 
Unity, do lift up the mind in company with the 
thought of God to an unbounded sublimity and 
infinite height, as I have said before (Chapter 
XII.); wherefore true Faith, which never ceaseth 
to speak of Order, Law and The One in the Many, 
directly revealeth and bringeth God unto belief, be- 
cause the high, holy, worshipful, adorable thought 
and spiritual meditation of God, to which the 
knowledge of The One in the Many bringeth us, 
disposeth the heart to believe, nay, openeth it to 
know and to behold, by the vastness and the 
exaltation and the divine beauty of this thought of 
God. For what is worthy of God seizeth on the 
soul to enforce it, or lovingly to draw it, to God. 
Insomuch that Marcus Aurelius, out of the abund- 
ance of his piety and reflection concerning the 
unity of all things and the harmony and constancy 
of the Universe, which reflection was the presence 
in him of true Faith, uttered his belief of God in 



144 AN AN CHOR OF THE SOUL. 

terms even of his bodily eyes, like the Zoroas- 
trian saying which already I have quoted; and 
these seers, I think, spoke wisely and well. Saith 
Aurelius, "To them who ask, Where hast thou 
seen Divinity or how comprehendest thou that 
God exists and so thou worshipest, I answer, God 
may be seen even with the eyes." 



CHAPTER XVI. 
Conclusion. 

If the reader have accompanied me patiently to this 
point, it must be either with accordance or with 
dissent, or with doubts, which are suspensions of 
agreement or of disagreement and will come to 
one or the other finally. If it be with doubt or 
with dissent, then either the matter is new to the 
reader or he has considered it before. In the 
latter case I have no advantage beyond any man 
nor any more warranty of being right, and can do 
no more than say farewell with the kind fellowship 
of reason. But if the reader who accepts not the 
matter find it new to him, I will ask him to con- 
sider how brief this book is for such themes, and 
to return to sundry parts of it to expand them and 
follow them out for himself by thought and by 
historical reading. Of the reader who has come 
along with me in agreement and belief, as well as 
journeyed through the pages, I will ask to take 
friendly leave with a word of survey of our journey 



BOOK THIRD. 1 45 

and what we have come unto, as if we had climbed 
a height and from that vantage could see in one 
view all the path of ascent. 

What hath been our progress and unto what 
station have we come? This, I may think: That 
we have found Faith to be Trust in the Universe 
as Moral Order; that this is very grand, glorious, 
sufficing Faith, and hath an exceeding effect on 
all our thinking, both of ourselves and of Nature 
and of human history, and on our sensibility in 
religion and our manner of thinking of God; that 
especially in our thoughts of our own souls as 
being truthful in power to know of God, and in 
our thoughts of God, and of him in Nature and 
dwelling in us, this Faith hath an exceeding great 
and exalting and glorifying office unto us; that by 
it all things put on a face of new unutterable 
beauty and glory; that God is The One in the 
Many, the Life of life, the Being of the Order 
which containeth our bodies and fortunes under 
dominion of observable Law; yet that in our very 
observation thereof he cometh unto every one 
of us and dwelleth in us unto a sure and joyful 
sense in us of Eternal Presence; that the storied 
pomp of men and the golden glories of Nature, the 
past, present, future, the everlasting Now, lie in 
the hollow of the Hand of the One Presence, Per- 
fectness, Eternity, Almightiness, "who taketh up 
the isles as a very little thing," yet with exceed- 
ing perfectness of Order and Law no less "prov- 
idently caters for the sparrow," guideth the dew- 



I46 AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 

drop to a woody cell, and satisfieth the mown field 
with rain. And when Faith hath come with us 
to these thoughts, then follows a pure worship, 
exalting adoration, prayer without beggary. 

Marcus Aurelius saith, in words which gather all 
parts of this little book in one, " Everything har- 
monizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O 
Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late 
which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit 
to me which the seasons bring, O Nature; from 
thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee 
all return. The poet saith of Athens, Dear city 
of Cecrops; and wilt not thou say of Nature, Dear 
city of God?" 



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